The use of independent expenditures in U.S. house elections

This thesis examines the factors that impel political parties and interest groups to use independent expenditures in U.S. House elections. Using data from House elections in which an incumbent sought reelection from 1992-2004, Generalized Linear Model analysis was employed to ascertain which factors, namely race competitiveness and incumbent ideology, were most determinative of the level of independent spending by selected interest groups and political party committees. In nearly all cases, race competitiveness was a statistically significant cause of independent spending. Other models also measured whether race competitiveness affected the prevalence of negative spending, and whether incumbent ideological extremeness increased independent spending, generally.