Special Interest Trade-offs: How Restricting Money in Politics Helps Church-backed Candidates

Most campaign spending reforms seek to curb the influence of economic interests in electoral politics. In this paper, we argue that these reforms can also facilitate the political entry of other organized interests—those with local presence and access to cost-effective mobilizational resources. We highlight that these reforms can be specially beneficial to parties supported by religious organizations. We provide evidence of this argument through the study of Republicanos, one of Brazil’s main Evangelical parties. Leveraging a reform that imposed limits on campaign spending for mayoral elections, we show that stricter limits increase the electoral entry and victory of Republicanos and that its access to the organizational infrastructure of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God was central to these gains. Our findings highlight the political tradeoffs of campaign spending reforms that seek to limit the role of money in politics. Reforms that restrict spending can curb the influence of economic interests while also empowering other minority interests.