Does Digital Campaigning Make a Difference for Individual Candidates in an Open List Proportional Representation System? The Case of the 2019 Election in Belgium

This article looks at the equalization/normalization problem through the lens of campaign spending and investigates the effect of expenses for digital tools on the electoral result of individual candidates in an open list proportional representation system. A multilevel analysis of the campaign expenses of 1253 serious contenders in the Belgian 2019 concurrent federal, regional, and European elections shows that the investment in both owned Web 1.0 media and paid Web 2.0 media does not have an effect on electoral performance. Investing in traditional tools, by contrast, does have a significant positive effect. While most candidates use digital tools, they invest only a small part of their budget in these, which may explain the absence of a digital expense effect. These findings put the use of digital campaigning in perspective, showing that the effect of paid online tools should not be overestimated, and that the role of traditional campaigning is still dominant.