Comedy Central’s Stephen Colbert has been quite eager to promote the “Colbert Bump” — the fundraising phenomenon through which guests receive more financial support after appearing on the program. An article by UC-San Diego PoliSci professor James Fowler, entitled “The Colbert Bump in Campaign Donations: More Truthful than Truthy,” which appears in the latest issue of PS: Political Science and Politics (Volume 41, Number 3 (July): 533- 539), suggests that there may be some truth behind Colbert’s “truthiness” claim:
Stephen Colbert, the host of Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, claims that politicians who appear on his show will become more popular and are more likely to win elections. Although online discussions cite anecdotal evidence in support of his claim, it has never been scrutinized scientifically. In this article I use “facts” (sorry, Stephen) provided by the Federal Election Commission to create a matched control group of candidates who have never appeared on The Colbert Report. I then compare the personal campaign donations they receive to those received by candidates who have appeared on the program’s segment “Better Know a District.” The results show that Democratic candidates who appear on the Report receive a statistically significant “Colbert bump” in campaign donations, raising 44% more money in a 30-day period after appearing on the show. However, there is no evidence of a similar boost for Republicans. These results constitute the first scientific evidence of Stephen Colbert’s influence on political campaigns.
Read Fowler’s entire article here for free (courtesy of the American Political Science Association).
Who said that PoliSci can’t be both fun and “truthy”? ;-)
