Andrew Prokop: You wrote a book, Subsidizing Democracy, that analyzed how public financing has worked in Arizona and other states. What did you find?

Michael G. Miller: The book examined how public funding changes the behavior and emotions and strategy of candidates that are in these elections. Connecticut and Maine have very similar programs, so I did survey work and interviews with candidates Arizona, but also in those other two states. I looked at candidates in Hawaii, Wisconsin, and Minnesota, which at the time had different kinds of smaller, partial public funding. I really worked with these folks in-depth to determine how they were using their time, their attributes, their qualifications, and their strategic consideration.

"Hundreds or thousands of interactions with voters would not have occurred in the absence of public funding."

One of my findings was that candidates who accept these subsidies are much more likely to interact with voters on a weekly basis, to the tune of about 5 hours. The reason for that is they don’t have to raise money. So the time they would’ve spent raising money is directly reinvested into voter engagement. So they’re doing a lot more knocking on doors, they’re doing a lot more meetings with interest groups, interviews with media, speeches, things like that. So they’re more visible. And over the course of a 30 week campaign, 5 hours a week really adds up. You’re talking about hundreds or thousands of interactions with voters that would not have occurred in the absence of public funding. That's one argument in the book.

A second finding is, if these candidates are more visible, I’m more likely as a voter to see somebody on my stoop having a conversation with me, I might be more likely to vote. And that’s what I find. I find about a reduction of 20 percent in rolloff. So that is, people who show up to vote for, say, president in 2008, and then stop voting when they get to the statehouse races — that more people stick around and vote in those downballot elections. Presumably that's because they have seen these candidates, they’ve had these interactions with them. So you get more participation among the electorate.

Another of my findings is that it’s easier for so-called average people who may not have run for office to hit the ground with a really impactful, what political scientists would call "high-quality," campaign. And the reason is because they have money. Say you’re a teacher or a plumber, or somebody else who’s never run for office before. It’s hard to build those connections and relationships [that are necessary for high-dollar fundraising]. These subsidies — the term I use in the book is that they "manufacture" quality challengers. And political scientists found that incumbents still usually win, but they win by smaller amounts. So you get elections that are a little more competitive, and I think one of the reasons for that is you’re allowing average folks to command the resources commensurate with a strong campaign.

Finally, there’s a chapter in the book about the objections that conservative candidates have to [using public funds for their campaigns]. And you really do see disproportionate participation between Democrats and Republicans, largely based on comfort level with the utilization of public money for this purpose.