Assessing the Electoral Connection: Evidence from the Early United States

Abstract

Students of legislative behavior are divided over the extent to which an electoral connection existed in the early United States. In this article, we offer a test of the electoral connection in early American politics by investigating the electoral aftershocks of the disputed presidential election of 1824. Using newly available county-level presidential voting data, along with the unique circumstances associated with the presidential contest, we examine the connection between representative behavior, district public opinion, and electoral outcomes. We find that representatives who voted for John Quincy Adams in the House contest, yet were from districts supporting Andrew Jackson, were targeted for ouster and suffered a substantial vote-loss in the subsequent midterm election. We also find that the entry of a quality challenger had a sizeable impact on the fortunes of incumbent legislators. These results serve to confirm that representatives could be held accountable for their behavior in office during the antebellum era.

Distributive politics, the electoral connection, and the antebellum US Congress: The case of military service pensions

“…Recent studies in the revisionist tradition have focused mostly on explaining one key aspect of the electoral-connection story: whether antebellum MCs took positions on roll calls that corresponded to district preferences (Baughman, 2008a; Meinke, 2007), and related to that, whether divergence from constituent preferences resulted in electoral sanctions (Bianco et al, 1996; Carson and Engstrom, 2005). We build on this responsiveness-based research by exploring the degree to which an equally consequential aspect of the electoral connection existed in the antebellum era: specifically, whether MCs sought opportunities to engage in credit claiming , by crafting policies with a particularistic eye to electorally-relevant constituencies.…”

Recentralizing the U.S. House Appropriations Process, 1919–20

“…Katz and Sala (1996) show that members of Congress were adopting norms of behavior to facilitate reelection bids by the late 19th century (see also Bianco, Spence, and Wilkerson 1996, Carson and Engstrom 2005, and Carson, Jenkins, Rohde, and Souva 2001, for evidence of an "electoral connection" during the 1800s). This result implies that the electoral connection model applies to the period under study here, where actions taken by mem-bers of the 66th House can be understood as motivated by an interest in reelection.…”

Leaving Office: The U.S. Senator’s Representation, Ideological Adoption, and Strategic Retirement

“…Incumbents can be electorally vulnerable depending on their legislative positions while in office. If senators take legislative positions out of step with their constituents, they will get lower vote shares, even losing reelection (Erikson & Wright, 2000;Canes-Wrone, Brady, & Cogan, 2002;Carson & Engstrom, 2005;Ansolabehere & Jones, 2010;Carson, Koger, Lebo, & Young, 2010;Kassow & Finocchiaro, 2011). In this sense, it is reasonable to believe that the probability that the incumbent decides to retire is largely structured by the probability of electoral success.…”