The influence of money in American elections is a familiar and controversial topic that has been the subject of considerable analysis from political scientists over the past several decades. Research in this area has focused largely on federal elections and, to a lesser extent, on state elections. Absent, however, from many scholarly accounts has been the study of how money and campaign finance laws affect local elections. The limited research on campaign finance at the local level has been due to a great extent on the difficulties that confront researchers in acquiring reliable and sufficient data for analysis. Yet, in Campaign Finance in Local Elections: Buying the Grassroots, Brian E. Adams makes a commendable effort to begin to break through and rise above this challenge.

Adams examines eleven cities that include New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Miami-Dade, San Francisco, Louisville, Seattle, Long Beach, Sacramento, Tampa, and Lexington over multiple election cycles. He explains that his selection was based on accessibility of data (each of the eleven cities require electronic disclosure of campaign contributions) and variation across the cities on dimensions such as “electoral structure, campaign finance rules, and political culture” (p. 17). Although these cities are not representative of the entire population of all local municipalities, which potentially complicates generalizations that the book can draw about local elections, especially those in less populated areas (Lexington is the smallest city in the analysis with 260,000 residents), there remains the familiar problem of accessing and acquiring data in small city and town elections. It is, therefore, difficult to fault Adams for not going beyond the eleven cities that he selects for his analysis. In fact, any fair reading of Campaign Finance in Local Elections: Buying the Grassroots would have to conclude that the totality of the analysis drawn from these eleven cities, which encompasses more than 700 mayoral and city council races and upwards of 2,800 candidates, is more than sufficient.

The book’s strengths, however, go beyond the data. Adams, for instance, shows a firm understanding and appreciation for some of the methodological concerns that often come up when assessing the influence of money in elections (see pp. 46-48). This allows Adams to draw appropriate and balanced conclusions throughout the book. He also has an accessible writing style. Rather than dryly reporting numbers from the tables, Adams is able to bring his statistical analysis to life by weaving together his broader findings with supporting anecdotes. This ability to combine quantitative and qualitative approaches is one of the book’s real accomplishments.

Of the major findings reported in the book, some are rather predictable whereas others are quite interesting – even noteworthy. In chapter three, Adams investigates whether the amount of money that candidates raise in city elections influences electoral success. He observes that the “fundraising threshold that candidates need to reach varies across cities but is high in most” and that candidates “who do not raise money rarely win, nor are they even competitive” (p. 54). On the one hand, there is nothing really new or surprising in those conclusions. On the other hand, Adams does deserve credit for providing empirical confirmation that raising money is necessary to wage a viable campaign for local office.

More interesting are some of the nuanced findings in the book. Los Angeles, for example, stands out as one of the most difficult cities to win a seat in the city council without a significant sum of money. Specifically, Adams reports that “winning a council seat in Los Angeles with less than $150,000 is not possible” (p. 73). Indeed, poorly-funded candidates rarely win in any of the local elections examined in the book. As Adams notes, “given their smaller size, we might have plausibly expected that at least one or two dark horse candidates who did not raise any money would be able to pull off an unexpected victory over a well-funded opponent” (p. 79). The absence of any such upsets at the local level is certainly telling.

Deeper into the book, Adams presents evidence that running for local office is inaccessible to most citizens. As he writes, “To be able to run for office, non-elites need more than some good ideas, a record of past civic activity, and support in the community; they also need to have a means to raise necessary funds” (p. 97). These fundraising demands, according to Adams, limit the pool of potential candidates, undermining the argument that “local governments are ‘training grounds’ for democratic citizens” (p. 97). Again, while this is also not a groundbreaking result, the empirical confirmation of this finding and its larger implications are significant to the broader discussion and debate about the effects of money in local elections and American democracy more generally.

We learn further that the “contributor pool is skewed towards the wealthy” (p. 138). Once more, this may seem predictable given past research on political donors, but as Adams rightly argues, “contributing $2,000 to a presidential candidate is not feasible for most people, but giving $200 to a candidate for city council is within the reach of many middle-class individuals” (p.139). The fact that the donor pool is unrepresentative and biased toward the wealthy, even in local elections, is certainly notable.

Lastly, Adams addresses a number of issues related to campaign finance reform in chapters seven and eight. It is here where some issues might be raised with Adams and his conclusions. For example, Adams, while generally describing public funding programs as having a minimal impact, writes that public funding “if matched at a 4:1 ratio” could alter the “relative weight of non-elite contributors” (p. 189). Just a few sentences later, he criticizes the New York City Campaign Finance Board for reporting that their campaign finance system has “brought fundamental changes to New York City politics” (p. 189). In 2007, however, New York City increased its matching rate from $4-to-$1 for the first $250 per contribution to $6-to-$1 for the first $175. While Adams’ analysis of New York City was from 1993 to 2005, the book’s release in 2010 certainly left enough time to consider the implications of this change to New York City’s campaign finance system. The failure of the book to do so at the end of chapter eight is a rather significant omission, especially given that recent research from the Campaign Finance Institute has shown rather conclusively that New York City’s matching program has increased the proportional role and number of small donors as well as shifted the demographic and class profile of its donor pool.

That criticism aside, Adams deserves praise for writing what is ultimately a fine book that is clearly written, well organized, and thoroughly researched. Campaign Finance in Local Elections: Buying the Grassroots is an important work that makes a valuable contribution to the campaign finance literature. It clearly succeeds in advancing our understanding of campaign finance and the role of money in city elections.