Gastando mais aqui e menos ali: explicando gastos em campanha digital

Abstract

This study proposes a dicussion on which variables and characterics explain the choice to invest in digital campaigns as an electoral strategy. Considering that since 2010 the internet has been central in the political comunication process in Brazil especially in election campaings, this study brings contributions that explain what made candidates and parties invest in this strategy in the 2020’s majoritarian municipal elections. This choice was made because: few municipal campaing were studied in Brazil on this topic; there is considerable variaty of contexts for the dispute; and the majoritarian elections favors strategies centered around candidates, expading our understading about the personal aspects on this relation. Besides, the 2020 was the most recente election that we have data as of right now. The independent variables chosen were canidate’s age, his incumbency status, region of the election, size of the municipality and candidates party. On the results we found that the probability of expending money on digital campaign is higher for candidates on big cities, from South, Middle-West and South-East region and from the traditional parties (MDB and PSDB). However, the probability to spend bigger percentages is affected by the belonging to small parties, by disputing in the big municipalities and by the non-incumbency, an inverse pattern from the one found in the spend/not spend dicothomy. We believe this finding has something to do with strategic uses of resources availables to big and small parties.