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What do we know about the effectiveness of donating money to political parties and campaigns?
What I'm getting at is - I often hear about "Candidate X is out-fundraising Candidate Y 2 to 1," or something like that. But how relevant is that to political outcomes? It occurs to me that I can't see the direction of the causal arrow here. Couldn't it just mean that Candidate X is already more popular, and therefore raises more money? What is that money used for?
If I want Candidate X to win, does it follow that I should donate money to that candidate or to their party? If I wanted the Democratic Party to win in my area - should I donate money to them? Does it matter at all? I just can't quite see the relationship of my donating money to achieving my desired political outcomes.
My understanding of the political science consensus is basically that: funds raised is just another way to measure popularity like polling numbers (with the obvious skew of people with more money and more willing to give it to candidates getting weighted heavier); the actual things the money is spent on doesn't seem to make a huge impact on election results.
As the other commenters mention, this might not be true in narrow situations like early on in a primary to a non-well-known candidate.
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