Constituency Congruency and Candidate Competition in U.S. House Elections

Carson, Jamie L.; Crespin, Michael H.; Eaves, Carrie P.; Wanless, Emily

doi:10.2139/ssrn.1124602

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 38 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Meanwhile, greater congruence between congressional and state House districts is also associated with a greater supply of quality candidates (Carson et al. 2011, 2012).…”

Section: District Lines and Representationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the districts in place from 2012 to 2022 in South Carolina, by contrast, U.S. House districts unnecessarily overlap with a number that varies between 1 and 17 state House districts. 2 Congressional districts that coincide with state legislative districts make it easier for voters to cast informed ballots, facilitate political mobilization and coordination among parties and candidates, and encourage cooperation among officeholders (e.g., Bibby and Maisel 2002;Carson et al 2011Carson et al , 2012. Conversely, voters in congressional districts that unnecessarily overlap with many state House districts share the same federal and state representation with fewer of their neighbors, a circumstance associated with less responsive government performance (Bowen 2014;Stashko 2020).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

The boundaries of confusion: Gerrymandering and racial disparities in state House and congressional district line congruity

Niven

Combs

Norwood

et al. 2022

Social Science Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objectives: We introduce a new, stable, and reliable measure of gerrymandering based on the number of unnecessary overlapping state House districts within U.S. House districts. We then test for the presence of racial disparities by considering the relative number of unnecessary overlapping districts in majority-white and majority-minority areas. Methods: We utilize a data set encompassing maps in place in the 2012-2022 period from all 35 states with at least four congressional districts. Collectively this includes 386 U.S. House districts and more than 3600 state House districts. Results: We find widespread unnecessary district overlaps. In 34 of the 35 states examined, congressional districts overlap with more state House districts than is mathematically required. Moreover, unnecessary district overlaps are not imposed uniformly. Regression results suggest that districts with the largest white population experience roughly half the unnecessary overlaps imposed on districts with the smallest white population. Conclusion:We argue the implications of this racial disparity are significant given that previous research finds that confusing district boundaries have a deleterious effect on the basic pillars of representation. This effort represents a new and straightforward gerrymandering metric with implications for the study of representation and the pursuit of fair districts in the courts.This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes.

show abstract

“…Meanwhile, greater congruence between congressional and state House districts is also associated with a greater supply of quality candidates (Carson et al. 2011, 2012).…”

Section: District Lines and Representationmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

The boundaries of confusion: Gerrymandering and racial disparities in state House and congressional district line congruity

Niven

Combs

Norwood

et al. 2022

Social Science Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Context affects a wide range of political outcomes, including candidate emergence (Carson et al., ; Jacobson and Kernell, ; Kazee, ; Maisel and Stone, ), political participation (Logan, Darrah, and Oh, ), and election results (Desposato and Petrocik, ). In particular, a substantial body of research has focused on how political context affects the representation of women in legislatures (e.g., Darcy, Welch, and Clark, ; Hogan, ; King, ; Matland and Studlar, ; Nechemias, ; Palmer and Simon, , ; Paxton, Hughes, and Painter, ; Pyeatt and Yanus, ; Setzler, ).…”

Section: Context Gender and Running For Officementioning

confidence: 99%

It's All Relative: Understanding “Women Friendliness” Between and Within States

Pyeatt

Yanus

2019

Social Science Quarterly

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Objective. In this article, we reexamine how the entry and success of women state legislative candidates is affected by local political context. Methods. We use evidence from state legislative elections from 2001 to 2010 to test our hypotheses. Results. We find that female candidates' emergence and success are affected by the district's context relative to both all districts nationally and all districts within that state. Intrastate comparisons are particularly influential in districts that are less women friendly using a national comparison. Conclusions. Our findings underscore the importance of considering multiple dimensions of political context as scholars attempt to understand the variation in political representation of women state legislators.Thomas Jefferson and Robert E. Lee were Virginians first, and Americans second. Likewise, Andrew Jackson was defined by his rugged Tenneseean image, and the Adamses were the consummate New England patricians. For their political differences, these early American statesmen had one thing in common: they were defined not only by their nationality-American-but also by the context and culture in which they were born, raised, and made their reputations.Competing identities such as these were common in the nation's first 150 years. But as dual federalism gave way to cooperative federalism, and, more recently, as local newspapers and radio and television broadcasts have given way to cable news and the Internet, citizens of the United States have become increasingly attached to a common identity. Yet, focusing solely on one level of the American federal government can oversimplify American citizens' cultural, political, and social identities. Even in an era of high party unity, Republicans in Maine view political issues differently than Republicans in Mississippi. The East Coast and the West Coast battle over which is the "best coast" on every issue from lifestyle to the best way to make a taco. (On the latter issue, both are wrong. Just ask any Texan.) With apologies to Tip O'Neill, it may no longer be the case that all politics are local, but some politics certainly are.In this article, we explore how both national (interstate) and local (intrastate) comparisons affect the entry and success of women candidates in state legislative elections. Overall, we expect that women candidates will be most likely to successfully run for office in areas that are the most "women friendly"-urban, diverse, Democratic, and affluentbased on a national comparison. However, we expect that intrastate comparisons will be

show abstract

“…Relevant for our purposes is their finding of a significant deterrence effect: Quality challengers were less likely to enter the race when the district's electoral landscape was “complex.” Relatedly, Carson et al. () find that incumbent state legislators are more likely to run for a House seat if their state legislative district's constituents represent a larger share of the federal House district's constituents. We now turn to summarizing our theory's predictions, after which we present the model in some detail.…”

Section: Some Regularities Of Campaignsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Valence and Campaigns

Carter

Patty

2015

American J Political Sci

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We present a model of two-candidate elections in which candidates are office-motivated, campaigning is voluntary and costly, and one candidate has a valence advantage. In equilibrium, the order of campaign announcements matters: Each candidate would prefer to announce his or her position after the other candidate has announced his or hers. The fundamental predictions of the model are (1) the impact of valence and campaigning costs on candidates' equilibrium behaviors is in general ambiguous, requiring further specification of the details of the electoral situation, and (2) in general, equilibrium platform announcements are essentially independent of the location of the median voter's ideal point. In addition, the model is consistent with elections in which both, only one, or neither candidate actively campaigns, and, finally, even when one candidate has a large valence advantage, there might be no equilibrium in which he or she will win the election with certainty.

show abstract

Constituency Congruency and Candidate Competition in U.S. House Elections

Cited by 6 publications

References 38 publications

The boundaries of confusion: Gerrymandering and racial disparities in state House and congressional district line congruity

The boundaries of confusion: Gerrymandering and racial disparities in state House and congressional district line congruity

It's All Relative: Understanding “Women Friendliness” Between and Within States

Valence and Campaigns

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About