No abstract

A large body of research on the impact of economic conditions on elections has been amassed. Past research emphasized congressional and presidential elections. The present research extended the question of economic effects to the state level. Are governors held responsible for the economic conditions of their states? The existing studies at the state level all used aggregate data and concluded that states' economies do not affect the fortunes of the governors. The studies inferred that the national economy, not the state economy, affects governors. The present research was a direct test of the aggregate studies using micro-level data from statewide surveys. Strong state economic effects on gubernatorial approval were found in a multivariate model. Furthermore, evaluations of the national economy were almost insignificant in predicting gubernatorial approval.Over the past fifteen years, a large body of research on the impact of economic conditions on elections has been amassed. It is now well established that the electorate responds to economic downturns by punishing the incumbent and the incumbent's party. The earliest studies used aggregate data (Kramer 1971;Stigler 1973;Arcelus and Meltzer 1975) and focused on presidential and congressional elections. In later surveys, researchers began investigating the economic effects with micro-level data (Weatherford 1978;Fiorina 1978;Kinder and Kiewiet 1979;Kiewiet 1981).

Borrowing findings from the literature on voter turnout, the authors examine the causes of rolloff in city council contests among black voters in New Orleans, a black empowerment area, between 1965 and 1998. The findings suggest the relevance of institutional power on group political participation. Roll-off among black voters declined after blacks held the majority of city council seats. Moreover, the findings indicate the relevance of election competitiveness. Black voter roll-off was lower in runoff elections than in primaries. Finally, the findings suggest that mobilization by black candidates, particularly by black incumbents, may yield enhanced political participation among black voters in urban elections.

Until 1991 Memphis was the only major US city with a majority-black population that had not elected a black mayor. Various explanations, including in-fighting and competition among black city leaders and citizen aversion to candidates who attempt cross-racial appeals, have been offered to explain the lack of an elected black mayor of Memphis prior to 1991. We first investigate how Herenton overcame these electoral obstacles to become Memphis' first elected black mayor in 1991, and then won reelection in two consecutive reelection attempts. We then apply Herenton's campaign strategy and the vote in these elections to several popular theories of voting and election strategy in urban elections-black-threat theory, urban regime theory, and deracialization. Our findings point to the new trend of biracial coalitions in the urban setting and suggest the importance of reconsidering the traditional theories of racial politics, such as the black threat thesis.Increasingly, white families would introduce their children to me. They did it the first time, I want you to know. The first term it wasn't like that . . . There is a large percentage of whites who look at me as a mayor, not an African-American mayor, but I am the mayor of Memphis.

Traditional black threat theory predicts an inverse relationship between the size of a jurisdiction's black population and white crossover voting. Recently, a modified black threat theory suggests that it may be more reasonable to expect a curvilinear U-shaped relationship between black density and white crossover voting, due to changes in both racial composition and white group status. Using Gary King's Ecological Inference (EI) procedure to estimate white crossover voting at the election unit level through precinct-level data, this study examines the relationship between black density and white crossover voting across 29 biracial elections in New Orleans between 1977 and. Results of our analysis support neither a negative, nor a U-shaped relationship. Rather, the shape of the relationship is an upward half-U. We explain this nonlinear relationship by suggesting that as blacks become a majority, white voters begin to cast votes for black candidates in a strategic manner.