Campaign Fundraising in State Supreme

Objective. What factors affect the ability of candidates for state supreme courts to raise money? In this article, I test (and expand) existing theories of political fund-raising (taken largely from legislative studies) in the context of judicial elec-tions. Methods. I examine the determinants of campaign contributions to all candidates running for the state supreme court from 1990–2000 in states that have competitive judicial elections. Most basically, I hypothesize that a candidate’s ability to raise money is dependent on characteristics of the candidate, the state electoral and supreme court context, and institutional arrangements. Results. The results suggest that candidates who have a greater probability of success than their op-ponents are better able to raise money. Yet, all is not within the control of the candidates, as the electoral context of the state and the court as well as the in-stitutional arrangements of the election and the court are also relevant. Conclu-sions. Campaign fundraising by state supreme court candidates, much like fundraising by legislative candidates, can be understood in systematic and predict-able ways. Candidates have some control over the amount of money that they ar