I’ve previously discussed the New York 3rd Congressional district election between Democrat incumbent Steven Israel and Republican challenger Grant Lally. I specifically examined Lally’s botched attack campaign and how the modern electoral system gives little option for challengers to defeat incumbents. One factor I didn’t examine that plays a very important role in elections is campaign financing.
Israel has raised over three million dollars and has only spent under two million on his campaign; his opponent Lally has raised just shy of seventy five thousand, spending over fifty thousand, that’s over 75% of his funds spent on his campaign. Israel has spent 54% on his campaign, and he still has over a million dollars for potential spending. Lally only raised a meager 4% of the money that Israel still has available. These numbers are astronomical; Lally doesn’t stand any sort of chance with campaign funds.
Lally’s full on attack campaign doesn’t make even close to enough money to pack any sort of punch. Perhaps this contributes to why Lally is forced into this sort of campaign strategy; he can only use enough money to attempt defacing Israel’s image. His only reasonable option is to impose the idea to voters that the congressman they have now is not efficient in his job. He doesn’t have the funds to publicize his platform and it puts him at a severe disadvantage.
When we run such proportional unequal elections it’s obvious that it isn’t going to be much of a competition, which contributes to lower voter turnout and less change in representation. Allowing this exorbitant amount of money to be used in campaigning only contributes to severing the connection between the American people and the government. Money is one of the many factors that is seemingly degrading the value of modern elections.
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