Legislative elections and the importance of money

In this paper we take the analysis of the role of money in legislative elections one step beyond the extant literature by examining the factors that affect the impact of spending on the vote. We hypothesize that two sets of factors, contextual and conversion, condition money's effect on the vote. The analysis of data from 12 state house races finds some significant support for the notion that spending responds to the context and the characteristics of the race, findings which have important theoretical and practical implications.