Keith E Hamm and Robert E Hogan, “Candidate Perceptions of Campaign Financing in State Legislative Eleciotns: Preliminary Observations,” Paper prepared for presentation at the 2007 Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association in Chicago Illinois, August 30 - September 2.

The authors examine candidate attitudes in three states—New Jersey, Virginia, and Connecticut—about how campaign finance laws affect legislative races in their states. In particular, they explore candidates’ perceptions of Connecticut’s new Clean Elections law slated to go in effect in 2008 and conclude that 70 percent of state legislative candidates expect to accept public funding if they run again. Support is somewhat lower among incumbents and Republican candidates, but is “reasonably high” across most sub-groups studied. While fewer Republicans support the new law, and fewer say they will use the public funding, ironically overall candidates believe that Republicans, being the minority party in the state, will benefit from it from it more than Democrats, as will challengers in general. Incumbents, Democrats (the majority party in the state), and wealthy candidates are viewed as having fewer advantages under the new system. Candidates also believe that electoral competition will increase. They also think the law will have unintended consequences.

The full version of the report is downloadable in pdf format.

Key excerpts follow [Emphases added]:

• For the most part, challenger and open- seat candidates of both parties are more supportive of public funding than incumbents...

• Overall, approximately 70% of the candidates said they were “likely” or “very likely” to take part…
• As we saw with the general attitudes toward public financing, there are often differences due to political party within candidate categories. …Here we find substantial differences between the parties. Not only are Republicans less supportive of public financing of elections in general, but they are also less inclined to make use of these funds when they are made available.
• Under the laws as they existed in 2006, candidates clearly believe that incumbents were advantaged relative to challengers. Approximately 83% of the respondents stated that incumbents were advantaged while 75% reported that challengers were disadvantaged. Candidates also clearly believe that the new law will have an effect on this disparity. Under the new law, only 43% of candidates believe that incumbents will be advantaged, while 30% say challengers will be disadvantaged. In fact, under the new laws, 52% of candidates believe challengers will be advantaged (only 7% who believed challengers were advantaged under the old system)…
• Under the new system, candidates believe Democrats will still have an advantage, although, they also believe that the laws will also increase the advantage of Republicans.
• The vast majority of respondents indicated they believed candidates who possess specific demographic characteristics were not affected by the old campaign finance regime. The percentage of respondents reporting that specific characteristics neither advantaged nor disadvantaged included, 62% for African Americans, 59% for Hispanic Americans, and 69% for women. Under the new rules, however, the percentage believing there will be no effects is reduced, moreover, there is a substantial increase in the percentage of respondents who say that candidates fitting these descriptions are likely to be advantaged.
• Finally, candidates were asked about how the wealth of candidates plays into the effects of campaign finance laws. Under the old system, candidate clearly believed that wealthy candidates were advantaged (69%) while candidates with low incomes were disadvantaged (67%). However, under the new system, the percentage believing wealthy candidates will have advantages is reduced to 24% while those believing they will have disadvantages increased from 3% to 29%. Similarly, while only 7% of respondents believed candidates with low incomes had advantages under the old system, 57% believe they have advantages under the new system.
• As the results show, the largest change appears in the electoral arena. Approximately 74% of respondents indicated that these changes would result in an increase in electoral competition (only 7% said it would decrease competition while 18% said it would have no effect). Respondents also believe that the influence of interest groups in the legislature will change. Approximately 48% of respondents say that the influence of interest groups will decrease while only 15% say it is likely to increase (33% say it will stay the same). …