Burnt Orange Report

Dollars and Delegates

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

Money doesn't win you a presidential nomination, having enough delegates does. Money helps you win those delegates, so an outsider to the political system might think that wherever the delegates are, that's where the money would go. But this is not the case. Because of the media and the traditions of holding certain primaries and caucuses for certain states early, this is skewed. Money is disproportionately spent on the order of state primaries, regardless of delegate votes.

I thought I might spend my Saturday night investigating this some.

Some candidates in the 2004 Democratic Primary do not have enough money to mount campaigns except in one or two early states. For the purpose of the type of analysis that I wanted to do, this would not work as I need a nation-wide campaign. This, of course, can be easily found in the Howard Dean campaign.

First I found a state spending distribution table from FEC filings. I then found a listing of the Total Pledged Delegate Votes for each state here, along with their election dates. I then divided dollars spent in each state, by the delegates that could be awarded based upon the election returns that night and created a "Dollars/Delegate" ratio. This excel table is posted here.

(Super delegates and unpledged persons that are not derived from the voting of each state's normal Democratic voters were not counted in my delegate totals as there is no direct relationship between state spending and congressional endorsements, for example)

The result is as follows...

Analysis in extended entry....

With Dark Green representing the most money per delegate and Dark Red representing the lowest spending per delegate one can see right off the bat (if they knew nothing about the election dates) that spending in states does not follow the logic of using money to get delegates to win the nomination.

But since we know that there exists the primary process and the media, there is an explanation for this otherwise odd behavior.

Some comments....

(note: Media State means a state is useful for generating buzz and headlines rather than any actual useful number of delegates towards the nomination and thus is the driving force. Delegate State means a state useful for gaining delegates towards the nomination and thus is the driving force for any spending.)

ANALYSIS OF TOP 15 TOTAL DOLLAR STATE SPENDING

In order, Iowa, South Carolina, Arizona, New Hampshire....all make sense due to being earliest primary states. Media States.

Next, Massachusetts and New York....large delegate states that also happen to have nearby media markets. Super Tuesday states.

Washington, Oklahoma, New Mexico....few delegates, but second wave February primaries. Media States (Washington, slightly less so)

California, Texas...huge delegate states, March primaries. Here is an example of the Dean Campaign spending money for delegates since it has the resources to do so. It is a smart move to create a delegate safety net in case 'media states' are being lost in February.

Wisconsin, Illinois...the latest primary states to date, moderate delegate size. Proximity to Iowa makes me think that some spending here is related more to nearby markets as these two are too far down the line to be used as safety nets.

D.C....totally for media concerns and Dean Campaign efforts to prove viability among Black voters.

Nebraska...spending here is Iowa related. It's May primary and small delegate share warrant no spending this early otherwise.

Rhode Island...Super Tuesday state, easy to cover with minimal spending. This is probably cheap window dressing.

SHORT ANALYSIS ON DOLLARS/DELGATE RATIOS

The top six Dollar/Delegate Ratios are New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, Arizona, New Mexico, and Oklahoma. Not a big surprise since these are the earliest that it gets. They also are Media States and combined have only 230 delegates, as much as New York has by itself.

Next are Massachusetts and Washington, early and more delegate rich.

Wisconsin is an oddball to me. It is late (April) and not a huge delegate state. Only explanation is that this is Iowa related being that it is next door. If not, this seems to be a waste of money here.

SHORT ANALYSIS ON PRIMARY ORDER

Unless the campaign isn't reporting all their numbers, there is virtually no spending in the early Feb. 3 states of Missouri, North Dakota, and Delaware. The latter two could be explained by their very low delegate totals, 14 and 15 respectively. Missouri would normally be a target, but as this will be a showdown with Gephardt, the money had to be spent first in Iowa. If he's knocked out there, no sense in worrying about Missouri then. If he survives, look to see money shift here quickly. In addition, of the Feb 3 states, Dean is spending in all the Southern ones and none of the northern ones. This could be related to proving that he is viable in the south as well as the fact they are worth more delegate wise.

Michigan, Feb. 7, is the same case as Missouri in my opinion. Same circumstances.

The rest of February has been given up upon. Likely money is being divided into the first half of the Media States pre-March, and then the big delegate states in March (which contains a boatload of the delegate share with California, New York, Texas, and Florida all residing there). Even though the campaign has money, it can't spend it everywhere, and later Media State are not important if you lose early Media States. And since they aren't delegate states, there is no other possible reason to be spending in them early.

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