Does party support help candidates win?

The parties’ congressional campaign committees have made it their business to strategically provide contributions to candidate campaigns in order to help their candidates win. However, the effectiveness of these contributions in terms of increasing the competitiveness of party-sponsored candidates remains untested. Using contribution data from the U.S. Federal Election Commission in a series of mixed effects models as well as a matching analysis, the receipt of direct party contributions and coordinated support is shown to significantly improve the competitive position of challengers but not open seat candidates in races for the House. Further, independent expenditures by the parties do not significantly increase candidates’ competitiveness. The implications of these results for future party strategies are explored.     

Securing a line on the ballot: Measuring and explaining the restrictiveness of ballot access laws for non-major party candidates in the United States

This paper uses difference of means tests and OLS regression to analyze third party and independent candidate state-level petition signature requirements for President, U.S. Senate, and U.S. House in the United States. This paper finds that Daniel Elazar's [Elazar, D. J. (1966). American federalism: A view from the states. New York: Crowell] political culture framework has utility in explaining petition signature requirement variations across states. The paper found that moralistic states have significantly lower ballot access requirements for U.S. House races than individualistic and traditionalistic states. Multivariate analysis indicates that the presence of a moralistic political culture in a state is an important determinant of petition signature requirements. Another interesting finding is that states, on average, tend to have higher petition signature requirements for U.S. House than for statewide offices. This finding suggests that the major parties may perceive the influence of third parties to be greater for district-level offices, such as U.S. House, than for statewide offices.     

Your lying,incompetent and selfish member of Congress: Cynical appeals in U.S. Senate advertising

Scholars still do not fully understand what activates cynicism in citizens. Although many expect that negative campaigning contributes to this, no consistent evidence has been found. This research introduces a new measure of appeals to cynicism that expands the commonly used positive–negative taxonomy of tone in advertising. Through a content analyses of more than 600 political advertisements aired during U.S. Senate elections, we identify the extent to which candidates use cynical appeals and the conditions under which these are used. We find that appeals to cynicism are common, are distinct from negative appeals, and that most often, ad sponsors target opponents with cynical appeals, describing them as selfish, dishonest and incompetent. Cynicism appears to be a central part of American campaign rhetoric, used by all sorts of candidates, regardless of party, in many different situations. The prevalence of appeals to cynicism may help explain rising cynicism among the public.     

Campaign Fundraising in State Supreme Court Elections*

Objective. What factors affect the ability of candidates for state supreme courts to raise money? In this article, I test (and expand) existing theories of political fundraising (taken largely from legislative studies) in the context of judicial elections. Methods. I examine the determinants of campaign contributions to all candidates running for the state supreme court from 1990–2000 in states that have competitive judicial elections. Most basically, I hypothesize that a candidate's ability to raise money is dependent on characteristics of the candidate, the state electoral and supreme court context, and institutional arrangements. Results. The results suggest that candidates who have a greater probability of success than their opponents are better able to raise money. Yet, all is not within the control of the candidates, as the electoral context of the state and the court as well as the institutional arrangements of the election and the court are also relevant. Conclusions. Campaign fundraising by state supreme court candidates, much like fundraising by legislative candidates, can be understood in systematic and predictable ways. Candidates have some control over the amount of money that they are able to raise (and thus their electoral viability), although there is little they can do about the electoral and supreme court context. Additionally, institutional arrangements play a large role in raising campaign funds, suggesting that there is not much reformers can do to limit the amount of money involved in elections short of eradicating elections altogether.     

Policy Divergence in Races for the U.S. House of Representatives*

Objective. This article investigates the extent to which opposing candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives adopt differing policy stances and examines explanations for policy divergence. Methods. We use a Congressional Quarterly survey of 1996 House candidates to measure policy divergence on eight issues. We then test explanations for this divergence: party pressures, primaries, third‐party candidates, campaign contributions, candidate preferences, and uncertainty. Results. Primaries, third‐party challenges, and contributions play little role in explaining policy divergence. We find that party and candidate preferences contribute to differences in the policy platforms of opposing candidates while uncertainty weakens the pressure for policy convergence. Conclusion. Imperfect information weakens pressure on candidates to adopt positions favored by the majority of voters in a district. This lack of pressure allows candidates to indulge their personal and party preferences in taking policy stances.     

Interest group influence on the ideological orientations of local party activists

This paper uses a national survey of local Democratic and Republican Party officials to determine the extent to which interest group attempts to develop a formal organizational presence within the grassroots Democratic and Republican parties might push the parties towards taking more ideologically extreme positions. It is hypothesized that members of predominantly Democratic and Republican groups will be more ideologically extreme than other local party officials. The survey results provide support for the hypothesis. Group-influenced party activists tend to be more ideologically extreme than other party officials. However, while a large percentage of Democratic and Republican local party officials are members of interest groups, only a relatively small percentage reported being recruited to party activism through their group involvement. The survey provides little support for the thesis that interest groups have systematically tried to “take over” grassroots party organizations.     

Campaign Finance Laws and the Competition for Spending in Gubernatorial Elections*

Objective. The diversity of campaign finance laws in the U.S. states allows the effects of these reforms to be measured. I investigate the impact of contribution limits and public financing on campaign spending in gubernatorial elections. Methods. I conduct a multivariate regression analysis of general election spending in races for governor from 1980 to 2000. I analyze levels of spending per voter, as well as challengers' share of total spending. Results. State contribution limits do not hold down overall spending. Candidate acceptance of public funding and spending limits reduces spending by incumbent governors more than it reduces that of challengers. As for challengers' share of spending, I find that public funding programs improve challengers' ability to match incumbents' spending dollar for dollar. Conclusions. State programs that offer public funding to candidates effectively favor challengers. This points to the potential of these reforms to make federal elections more competitive.     

The Effects of Candidate Gender on Campaign Spending in State Legislative Elections*

Objective. This article will investigate whether candidate gender affects levels of campaign spending in state legislative elections. Methods. The analysis compares men and women candidates running for the state legislature in 20 states over two election cycles. By controlling for a range of contextual factors, the analysis isolates the independent influence of candidate gender. Results. The findings demonstrate that women and men spend similar levels of campaign funding in running for the state legislature. Running as incumbents, challengers, or open‐seat candidates, women are not at a financial disadvantage relative to similarly situated men candidates in the general election. Conclusions. Although women may suffer difficulties at other parts of the electoral process, women are not at a disadvantage relative to men in how much money their campaigns ultimately allocate for the purposes of gaining voter support.     

Party Organization and the Political Success of the Communist Successor Parties

Objective . Although there has been much recent work done on party systems in the postcommunist world, there has been very little systematic comparative work that examines the relationship between the organizational development of political parties and political performance. The objective of this article is to empirically examine the relationship between party organization and the political success of 17 communist successor parties from 1993 to 2000. Methods . I propose a way of measuring party organizations based upon the degree of personnel overlap between the organs of the extraparliamentary party and the party in public office and the organizational density of political parties and relate these characteristics to the political success enjoyed by the communist successor parties. Results . In general, I find that the more the successor party was dominated by officeholders and less reliant on a mass membership for political support in the years immediately following the transition, the more successful the party was later. Conclusions . The interaction of party organization with the party's competitive environment was a better predictor of success than declines in the socioeconomic condition of the population, rises in popular "nostalgia" for the past, or openings created by political institutions.     

The impact of racially disproportionate outcomes on public policy: The U.S. Senate and the death penalty

The implementation of particular public policies may infringe upon important civil rights of citizens. This article explores the relationship between the racially disproportionate effects of the death penalty and a subsequent attempt in the U.S. Senate to provide racial justice protection. While the most important explanatory factors of a senator's behavior are their political philosophy and the state homicide rate the findings also indicate that racially disproportionate outcomes under capital punishment in the senator's state are negatively associated with the probability that the senator will support racial justice protection. We discuss the importance of these findings.     

A longitudinal test of the gender turnover model among U.S. House and Senate members

This study builds on previous research by examining the impact of gender when predicting roll call voting behavior in the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate over several recent congresses. In order to unearth gender effects, it employs a longitudinal design based on turnover in the membership of both the House and the Senate. Through a comparison of the voting records of members of Congress representing the same geographic territory it holds constituency constantly while allowing for gender and party to vary. It does so with models including dependent variables that measure roll call ideology and support for women's issues exhibited in the voting records of members in both institutions. The results show that male and female members in each chamber representing the same constituency amass virtually indistinguishable voting records on the liberal-conservative policy dimension. However, on votes dealing with issues of concern to women, female senators tend to be more supportive than the male senators they replace and male senators tend to be less supportive than the female senators they replace.     

Fusion ballots as a candidate-centered reform: Evidence from Oregon

This article argues that fusion balloting, or the ability of multiple parties to nominate a single candidate for office, can be viewed as a candidate-centered and incumbent-oriented reform. Using the recent passage of fusion legislation in Oregon in 2009 and its subsequent use in 2010 state legislative elections as a test case, I study the factors behind supporting fusion legislation in both chambers of the state legislature and how these same factors affected, or did not affect, the incumbents that received cross-nominations in the 2010 elections. Overall, I find that party did not play a direct role in determining which legislators supported fusion, though female legislators were less supportive. When it came to obtaining nominations, the main finding is that incumbent candidates who voted yes to fusion were generally more likely to receive nominations. Still, legislators from the group that most opposed fusion, Democratic women, attempted to win cross-nominations once the 2010 elections approached. These findings suggest that candidate factors, more than party dictates, affected support for fusion and the ability of incumbents to receive cross-endorsements. Thus, the willingness of major-party candidates to adopt fusion can be understood through theories of candidate-centered elections and political parties.     

Party and Personal Preference in Post‐Soviet Legislatures*

Objective. Initial studies of post‐Soviet legislative behavior have concluded that parties can affect legislative behavior; however, the methods used by these studies failed to distinguish between the effects of party and personal preferences. Evidence of party effects would be surprising given not only the perceived weaknesses of post‐Soviet political parties, but also the debate on the existence of party effects in the U.S. Congress literature. Methods. The data are electronically recorded roll‐call data from both the Ukrainian Rada and Russian Duma. I employ an OLS residualization technique to construct deputy preference measures. Then, I use multivariate analysis (tobit) to measure the impact of deputy preference and partisanship on support for government legislation. Results. In both the Rada and Duma, party and personal preferences impacted deputy voting behavior. Conclusion. Parties are an important determinant of legislative behavior, even in weak party systems of post‐Soviet Ukraine and Russia.     

Following the Rules? Candidate Strategy in Presidential Primaries*

Objectives. The competitiveness of the 2008 presidential primaries in both the Republican and Democratic parties has prompted a reconsideration of the role of delegate‐selection rules in influencing the strategic behavior of presidential candidates. Using advertising and candidate state‐visit data from the 2004 and 2008 presidential nominating campaigns, we reexamine the strategies presidential candidates use when competing for the nomination of their party. Methods. Using the Wisconsin Advertising Project Data from 2004 and 2008, we estimate several multiple regressions designed to analyze the factors predicting candidate visits and advertising. Results. We find that, to a large extent, the rules of the game help predict where candidates allocate their political advertising and campaign stops; candidates consider whether a contest is a primary or caucus, they pay attention to how many delegates are at stake, and they consider whether a state's delegate‐allocation method is largely proportional or winner take all. Yet we also find some differences in how the rules influence frontrunners and long‐shot candidates, and we discover how other factors, including a candidate's access to financial resources, influence the allocation of ads and visits. Conclusion. Our findings offer some of the first empirical evidence for the idea that a state's delegate‐allocation method influences candidates' resource‐allocation behavior. That these rules matter at all is somewhat of a surprise given that the delegate‐allocation methods used by states have become more homogenous within each party.     

The Political Attitudes of Australian Voters and Candidates

Modern theories of political representation assume that there will be little congruence between the views of political elites and the voters they govern. This paper uses survey data collected among candidates and voters at the 1987 Australian federal election to examine the extent of elite-mass differences on a range of 33 issues. The results show that Labor candidates and Labor voters are more likely to disagree on political issues, while Liberal-National candidates and voters are more likely to agree. Candidates of all parties are more liberal on issues such as Asian immigration, law enforcement and the protection of the environment, compared to their voters, while Senate candidates are more liberal than House of Representatives candidates. Finally, as other studies have found, candidates with constituency responsibilities, in this case those standing for the House of Representatives and incumbents, are more likely to be closer to the views of their party's voters than Senate and non-incumbent candidates.     

The Impact of Candidate Sex on Evaluations of Candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives*

Objectives. To examine how voters and the general public evaluate women candidates by examining ideological and issue‐based evaluations of women candidates for the House of Representatives. Methods. Data are drawn from the National Election Study for all U.S. House elections from 1990 to 2000. OLS and logistic regression models examining the role of candidate sex in evaluations are tested. Results. When evaluating Democratic candidates, people see them as more liberal and utilize more female issues in their evaluations when the candidate is a woman. For Republican candidates, candidate sex is much less likely to be related to how people evaluate them. Conclusion. The central role of party in public evaluations of women candidates suggests that the impact of candidate sex on voters is more complex than previous works have suggested.     

Strategic and Sincere Voting in a One‐Sided Election: The Canadian Federal Election of 1997*

Objective. We are interested in whether and how voters make strategic decisions in a race that is, according to the polls, expected to be very one sided. Looking specifically at the choices available to ideologically right‐of‐center voters in the 1997 Canadian federal election, we argue that strategic considerations will be filtered by voters' assessments of the competitiveness of the race both locally and nationally. Methods. We estimate logistic regression models measuring support for the two right‐of‐center Canadian political parties. Our models focus on the relationship between assessments of district‐ and national‐level party prospects on voting for the Progressive Conservative Party. Results. We find that voters who consider the race competitive emphasize district‐level data in their strategic calculations. However, those who consider the election to be all but over look more closely at national‐level concerns when deciding which right‐wing party to support. Conclusions. We conclude that earlier understandings of tactical voting should be updated to take into consideration the circumstances under which voters will use national‐level evaluations of relative party viability in casting their ballots.     

Limousine Liberals and Corporate Conservatives: The Financial Constituencies of the Democratic and Republican Parties*

Objective. This study examines the backgrounds, political attitudes, issue preferences, and political participation of congressional donors who contribute $200 or more to congressional campaigns. Methods. We use a nationwide survey of more than 1,000 donors and analyze differences among these individuals using cluster analysis. Results. Although these significant donors are economic elites, we find they are not monolithic in their political views and attitudes. There are significant cleavages in the donor pool across and within the two major parties on various political issues and involvement in different political organizations. Perhaps most important, we find that the most active donors hold the most ideologically extreme political views. Conclusions. The results suggest that the sharp cross‐party differences and the meaningful variations within party coalitions, combined with the greater activity of more ideologically extreme donors, contribute to and reflect party polarization.     

Asian Americans and campaign finance in municipal elections

This paper explores the political significance of Asian American campaign finance activity in municipal elections. We examined both the donation patterns of Asian contributors and the fundraising coalitions assembled by Asian candidates. From the contributor perspective, we found that Asians contributed in roughly proportional levels to their population as a whole, and were willing to contribute not only to coethnics but also to Asian candidates of other ethnicities and to non-Asians. As for Asian candidates, we found that they relied heavily on Asian contributors for campaign funds, especially coethnics. Asian candidates’ ability to draw on ethnic networks for campaign funds is an important political resource that enhances their ability to mount competitive campaigns. However, the value of these networks is limited by candidates’ inability or unwillingness to form panethnic fundraising coalitions.     

Listen to What I Say,Not How I Vote: Congressional Support for the President in Washington and at Home*

Objectives. Are legislators' party affiliations or is district partisanship the greatest predictor of legislative support of the president? Do members of the U.S. House emphasize different policy positions when casting roll calls than when communicating their positions to constituents? We theorize that party is less important in legislators' district‐oriented behavior than in roll‐call voting. When casting roll calls, legislators are agents facing multiple principals, namely, political party leaders and their district constituencies. When engaging in district‐oriented behavior, the only key principal is the legislator's constituency. Methods. We analyze legislators' positions on roll calls and in platforms. Platforms are examined with a unique data set of franked mass mailings sent by House members. Linear and limited dependent variable models are employed. Results. Our findings show that constituency preferences are a more consistent predictor of legislative support for the president when analyzing legislators' platforms, and that political party has a relatively limited effect. When analyzing roll‐call votes, party is the key predictor. Conclusions. Political parties may be interested in what legislators do as opposed to what they say. The platform findings are in contrast to most recent empirical work examining position taking, though consistent with the canonical works of Mayhew and Fenno. This has implications for theories of parties in Congress that tie party behavior in the legislature to partisanship in the electorate.