Aggregate Effects Of Congressional Elections
NATIONAL POLITICS AND CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS
The electoral politics of Congress may center largely on individual candidates and campaigns, but it is the collective results of congressional elections that shape the course of national politics. Subject of the chapter →how the millions of individual voting decisions in hundreds of districtly individual contests combine to produce intelligible election results.
Before the tools of survey research came into common use, politicians and political analysts had little problem interpreting aggregate congressional election results. It was widely believed that economic conditions and presidential politics shaped the electoral prospects of congressional candidates. It is no great challenge to interpret …show more content…
A presidential winner whose success is not shared by other candidates of his party is presumed to have no coattails.
Party identifiers who voted for the other party’s presidential candidate were a good deal more likely also to for the other party’s House or Senate candidate as well in every election year. The aggregate effects of presidential coattails depend on how defection rates differ between the two parties’ identifiers.
The vote decision is strongly influenced by the voters’ knowledge and evaluations of the particular set of candidates running in the district or state. National issues such as the state of the economy or the performance of the president may influence some voters some of the time but for many voters the congressional choice is determined by evaluations of candidates as individuals, often with little reference to national policies or …show more content…
Congress is a representative assembly because its members are chosen in competitive popular elections, and if voters do not like what the members are doing, they can vote them out of office. Aggregate representation is necessarily crude and rests on somewhat shaky foundations, depending, as it does, partly on the self-reinforcing expectations of congressional elites. • Policy congruence: Hard to measure, but apparently reasonably good congruence between district opinion and roll call voting. • National causes: Some reps become the voice of a national cause (black rights, pro-life, etc.) • Not descriptive representation.
Among the most familiar targets for congressional critics’ scorn is members’ notorious affection for policies that produce particularized benefits. The influence of Congress’s fondness for particularized benefits goes beyond public works and tax breaks. A more fundamental problem with particularized benefits is Congress is forever tempted to overproduce
The electoral politics of Congress may center largely on individual candidates and campaigns, but it is the collective results of congressional elections that shape the course of national politics. Subject of the chapter →how the millions of individual voting decisions in hundreds of districtly individual contests combine to produce intelligible election results.
Before the tools of survey research came into common use, politicians and political analysts had little problem interpreting aggregate congressional election results. It was widely believed that economic conditions and presidential politics shaped the electoral prospects of congressional candidates. It is no great challenge to interpret …show more content…
A presidential winner whose success is not shared by other candidates of his party is presumed to have no coattails.
Party identifiers who voted for the other party’s presidential candidate were a good deal more likely also to for the other party’s House or Senate candidate as well in every election year. The aggregate effects of presidential coattails depend on how defection rates differ between the two parties’ identifiers.
The vote decision is strongly influenced by the voters’ knowledge and evaluations of the particular set of candidates running in the district or state. National issues such as the state of the economy or the performance of the president may influence some voters some of the time but for many voters the congressional choice is determined by evaluations of candidates as individuals, often with little reference to national policies or …show more content…
Congress is a representative assembly because its members are chosen in competitive popular elections, and if voters do not like what the members are doing, they can vote them out of office. Aggregate representation is necessarily crude and rests on somewhat shaky foundations, depending, as it does, partly on the self-reinforcing expectations of congressional elites. • Policy congruence: Hard to measure, but apparently reasonably good congruence between district opinion and roll call voting. • National causes: Some reps become the voice of a national cause (black rights, pro-life, etc.) • Not descriptive representation.
Among the most familiar targets for congressional critics’ scorn is members’ notorious affection for policies that produce particularized benefits. The influence of Congress’s fondness for particularized benefits goes beyond public works and tax breaks. A more fundamental problem with particularized benefits is Congress is forever tempted to overproduce