12. Money in electoral competition

If an interest group can mobilize voters and can target its efforts according to the individuals' preferences, it can move the outcome of electoral competition towards its favored alternative. In the absence of an ability to target individuals with specific preferences, it can move the outcome only closer to the median of all the citizens' favorite alternatives.

In a simple model with a single voter, an interest group with preferences contrary to the voter's that can inform the voter about candidate quality in exchange for a candidate taking a position favored by the group makes the voter worse off if an uninformed voter believes that candidate quality is likely to be high.