Critics of American politics often say that spending on electoral campaigns harms our democracy and charge that the money goes for cynical, negative, and misleading advertisements that alienate the public from politics and elections. However, studies indicate that campaign spending does not diminish trust, efficacy, and involvement. Moreover, spending increases public knowledge of the candidates, across essentially all groups in the population. This paper explores the idea that getting more money into campaigns should, on the whole, be beneficial to American democracy.
