With the primary season now complete and the 2014 midterm elections imminent, the Center for Effective Public Management at Brookings, in collaboration with the Campaign Finance Institute (CFI), is pleased to present new research from the Primaries Project that includes first-of-its-kind analysis and data. As a part of the Primaries Project, veteran political journalists Jill Lawrence and Walter Shapiro, along with CFI’s Michael Malbin and Clark University’s Robert Boatright, undertook this research and data collection to better understand the dynamics within Congressional primary elections and their impact on policy.
Visit brookings.edu to read our full coverage of the primaries, plus new papers released today:

www.brookings.edu/PrimariesProject

Four new papers—including two from CFI—cover a range of issues including:

• The interplay between incumbents and their non-incumbent challengers;
• The issues both parties chose to campaign on;
• The margins of victory compared to past races;
• What lower visibility House races tell us;
• Insights into the source of campaign money for primary races;
• And contextual analysis of outside spending in congressional primaries.

The papers are also available through CFI: http://cfinst.org/Federal/election_2014/primaries.aspx

We hope you enjoy the research. The Primary Project’s full dataset will soon be released so you can evaluate the information for yourself.

Sincerely,

Elaine Kamarck
Founding Director, Center for Effective Public Management
Senior Fellow, Governance Studies at Brookings
@EKamarck