Beneficiaries at the Margin: Voter Turnout and State Education Budgets

Political support for education spending depends heavily on electoral participation. This paper examines two opposing mechanisms linking voter turnout to state education budgets. Broader participation might amplify demand by increasing the beneficiary share of the electorate, thereby raising political support for spending. Alternatively, it could dilute interest-group influence if organized beneficiaries wield disproportionate power during low-turnout elections but lose relative leverage as the voting pool expands. To evaluate these dynamics, I construct a state-year measure of "adult exposure" as the share of voting-age adults living with school-age children. In a Two-Way Fixed Effects model covering 2012-2022, the interaction is negative across all specifications. At average exposure, higher turnout is associated with a smaller education budget share. While the estimates are imprecise, the results favor interest-group dilution and cast doubt on meaningful demand amplification. Ultimately, the fiscal effect of electoral participation depends entirely on the specific interests it brings into the political process.