Early Money and Strategic Candidate Exit

This paper departs from the ballot to examine dropout decisions in congressional elections from 1980 to 2022. I draw on an original dataset of 26,000 U.S. House candidates who were voted on in the primary or raised money but were not on the ballot. Moving beyond the ballot reveals new patterns of strategic candidate exit. While prior work focused on differences in the entry of experienced candidates, I find that experienced candidates who struggle to raise money are more likely to exit. In addition, the relationship between early fundraising and dropout decisions has changed dramatically over time. Experienced candidates who fail to make early fundraising inroads are far more likely to drop out today than in previous decades. The exit of experienced candidates has important implications for the choices that voters have. The findings provide new evidence of how money shapes the trajectory of campaigns well before the election.