I am focusing on the effect that increased contributions through super PACs has had on the presidential elections this year for my research project. Specifically, how non-traditional candidates like Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump are benefiting from avoiding this change. Ever since the Citizens United v. FEC decision by the Supreme Court in 2010, there is no longer a limit on how much any single person or business can contribute financially to support a candidate. While these contributions cannot go directly to the campaign itself, organizations called super PACs (Political Action Committees) pool and spend the money on advertisements supporting or attacking candidates. This decision, and the rapid increase in campaign spending that it created, lead many to fear this election would be decided by who could raise the most money rather than who had the support of the public.

However, so far in this election cycle, the two leading candidates for each party (and now the two winners in the New Hampshire primaries) are not supported by PACs. In both Bernie Sanders' and Donald Trump's case this is not accidental either, they have intentionally avoided the money that many predicted would decide the election. There are many reason to explain the rise of these markedly non-traditional frontrunners, but it does appear that has been a widespread reaction against the PAC-backed campaigns that at one point were seen as the "new normal". 

Personal Context

I choose to research this because I was initially curious about whether all the new campaign spending would be effective. I thought it would be because I believed that with no limits on the money that could be spent on advertising that the candidates with the most money would be able to create the narratives they wanted by saturating all media with ads. This is more effective than ever since the amount of time most people spend looking at various screens has increased so much even in just the past eight years, making campaign ads virtually unavoidable. I am an idealist when it comes to how I think elections should work. I want everyone to vote and I want everyone to vote based on what issues they care about rather than strictly part affiliation or superficial qualities. I think we as Americans love to complain about our country and government but when it comes to the most direct way we have to change things we seem apathetic to the whole process. So the idea of corporations and wealthy donors having an avenue to influence elections immediately grabs my eye.  

Sources


This article argues that Donald Trump's success in the polls prior to the Iowa Caucus has caused many republican donors to withhold the money that they would normally give to Super PACs. It uses Federal Election Commission data showing how much money each candidate has raised each quarter to back the author's claims about Trump's impact. Similarly, the article uses this data to show that Bernie Sanders is closing in on Hilary in Iowa polls despite relying on only small donors rather than PAC money. One of the article's three authors, Bill Allison has significant experience examining campaign finance working for organizations such as the Sunlight Foundation and The Center of Public Integrity. Peter Brusoe, another one of the authors, has similar experience working for the Campaign Finance Institute. The combined experience that the authors of this article have make them qualified to speak on this issue. This article places a lot of importance in the money donated to each campaign as the authors see this as an indication of who each party's "establishment" favors. This article's reliance on verifiable data and quotes from the people in the campaigns and parties involved in this story gives it credibility. 


This article highlights the relative lack of success the candidates that are backed by Super PACs are experiencing so far in this election. It details all the potential reason these PACs might not be helping candidates like most expected. It uses examples from the race so far to were campaigns were helped or hurt by their use of PACs. It ultimately concludes that for most candidates it is worth the risk to establish one but they must be use carefully. The author of the article, Peter Overby, is NPR's correspondent for campaign finance and lobbying and has received multiple awards for his work in both print and broadcast journalism. Therefore, he lends more credibility to the arguments he presents in his article. Overby doesn't display any obvious bias in his writing as he examines cases that do not support his main claim as well as ones that do. 


The author of this article takes Overby's argument from the last source to the next level. This article describes the effect that Super PACs have on campaigns as a "burden". Trump's success, it argues, is mainly due to the fact that he has completely forgone these organizations. The article touches on almost every republican candidates and details the problems they are having and how they are connected to Super PACs. This article only focuses on the Republicans, and mainly paints their campaign in a negative light. By omitting the Hillary/Sanders angle, which is remarkably similar to the Republican side, the author reveals an agenda that is consistent with the typical perception of the Huffington Post's ideology. The author makes bold statements such as describing the election as "corrupt" and calling the person running Jeb's campaign a "loser" as well. 

Feasibility 

My argument is feasible for many reasons. For one, there are many aspects of Super PACs that might be hurting the campaigns that use them more than the money helps. Also the strategies that Trump and Sanders are using instead of PACs have been used before and have been proven effective. There are many similarities between the two "non-establishment" candidates that are doing so well which points to a larger phenomenon rather than something unique to a particular person. Also, there seems to be almost a reverse correlation between the money spent and percentage of the vote received so far in the primaries. There are only limited examples of PACs actually helping campaigns due to their recent invention. 

After looking these sources, I might have to adjust my research question from looking at if there is larger public reaction against PACs. This is because the sources that I have found so far indicate that the reason that Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are seemingly benefiting from not utilizing PAC money has more to do with the problems that PACs bring to candidates that use them then any sort of voter response to big money politics. When I started researching, I just assumed that PAC support was intrinsically helpful for a candidate, so I looked for an outside reason that the candidates using PACs were struggling.  Overall however, looking at the negative effect of super PACs as a way of looking at Sanders and Trump's success in the primaries is a feasible argument. 
