The Impact of Unified Party Government on Campaign Contributions

This article examines the connection between unified party government and campaign contributions. Our central argument is that unified party government confers a substantial, but previously overlooked, fundraising advantage to intra-chamber majority parties. We examined data on corporate campaign contributions to U.S. House incumbents and state legislators in 17 different legislative chambers. We found a strong fundraising benefit accruing to intra-chamber majority status across all of these legislatures, but the benefit is heavily conditioned by the presence of unified or divided government. The results offer important implications for our understanding of the financial balance of power in American politics and for the vast scholarly literature on unified party government.