States with partisan judicial elections and professionalized courts attract greater campaign contributions

More than twenty US states use competitive elections - some partisan, some not - to choose their judges. As with much of the rest of US politics, judicial candidates are often reliant on campaign contributions from businesses, ideological groups, and individuals. In new research, Brent Boyea finds that where states hold partisan elections and have professionalized courts, individual contributors are much more generous than those where they do not.