Ideological Primary Competition and Congressional Behavior

Jewitt, Caitlin E.; Treul, Sarah A.

doi:10.1080/07343469.2019.1600173

Cited by 7 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…I run additional tests to determine whether these results might be confounded by primary challenges pushing reelected incumbents to cast more extreme votes in the new term. I add two variables as controls in separate models: the incumbent’s primary vote share and a binary indicator of whether the incumbent received less than 75% of the primary vote share, a threshold of competitiveness used previously by Boatright (2014) and Jewitt and Treul (2019). I present results in Table A10 in the appendix.…”

Section: Evidence From Congressmentioning

confidence: 99%

White Constituents and Congressional Voting

Hansen

2022

American Politics Research

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Why do some members of Congress vote more on the extremes of their party than others? I argue that lawmakers representing more homogeneously white districts have greater electoral incentive to moderate their voting records, since the two parties compete more for support of white voters than for the support of minority voters. I provide evidence using roll-call votes from the U.S. House and Senate. I find members representing more homogeneously white districts have more moderate voting records, a finding that holds for Democrats and Republicans. I explore two potential mechanisms: legislator responsiveness and electoral punishment. While legislators do not seem to adjust their voting behavior in response to short-term changes in district racial composition, more homogeneously white districts are found to assess larger vote share penalties on more extreme candidates in general elections. The findings have implications for our understanding of race, representation, and electoral accountability.

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Section: Evidence From Congressmentioning

confidence: 99%

White Constituents and Congressional Voting

Hansen

2022

American Politics Research

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“…These earlier studies problematically assume that all primary challenges should have polarizing effects. 2 However, more recent studies isolate the impact of primary challengers from the ideological extreme, but find no (Boatright, 2013), or only modest and conditional (Jewitt and Treul, 2019), effects on polarization. 3…”

Section: Primaries and Polarizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Raw partisanship scores based on bill co-sponsorship are interesting, but one should be cautious about cross-party comparisons. During the 1980s, as Democrats were in the midst of a long reign of power in the House, Republicans had fewer co-partisans (Hall, 2015; Hall and Snyder, 2015; Jewitt and Treul, 2019) with which to cosponsor, and legislative success was greatly enhanced by cooperating with members of the Democratic majority. Moreover, prior research finds that liberals are more likely to sponsor and cosponsor legislation (Campbell, 1982; Krehbeil, 1995).…”

Section: Partisan Bill Co-sponsorshipmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, for each member in each Congress, the co-partisan variable is the number of members from the same party. I include the majority status variable because Jewitt and Treul (2019) find that only members in the majority adjust their legislative behavior in response to primary challengers. I include the number of fellow co-partisans given the nature of my dependent variable—since a member’s co-sponsorship with the other party is, in part, a function of the number of co-partisan and partisan counterparts in Congress.…”

Section: One-to-one Effects Of Ideological Challengesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The primary threat: How the surge of ideological challengers is exacerbating partisan polarization

Barton

2022

Party Politics

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Despite widespread speculation among pundits and politicians, statistical research finds little evidence that primaries are an important source of polarization in roll call voting. This manuscript moves beyond roll call votes by testing the effects of ideological primary challenges on partisanship in bill co-sponsorship in Congress. Moreover, while extant research generally focuses on the one-to-one effects of primary challenges on the incumbents who experience a challenge, I measure and test the effects of the mere threat of a primary challenge from the ideological extreme. I find that the increased threat of an ideological primary challenge accounts for about one-fourth of the rise in partisanship that occurred from the 1980s to the 2010s. These findings suggest the recent wave of ideological primary challenges is an important source of the escalation and intensification of polarization in recent Congresses.

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“…However, some previous work has also argued that parties' relative priorities should vary depending on the electoral context. Specifically, this work has argued that parties are willing to compromise on policy preferences and to prioritize electoral victories when out of the majority (Bawn et al, 2012;Cohen et al, 2008;Jewitt and Treul, 2019;Masket, 2011;Masket and Noel, 2012;Somer-Topcu, 2009). After electoral losses parties are more likely to nominate moderate candidates (Masket 2011) and emphasize certain characteristics in the candidate selection process aimed at increasing electability (Masket 2020).…”

Section: Changing Party Prioritiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Shifting party goals: Party electoral support and legislative behavior in the majority and the minority

Ballard

Hassell

2021

Party Politics

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While scholars agree that parties are interested in both pragmatic (electoral) and programmatic (policy) goals, they disagree about the relative importance of those goals. How parties weight these goals has implications for the effect of party involvement on legislative behavior. We argue that parties emphasize these goals differently based on whether they are in the majority or minority. We examine links between party support in primary elections for the US Congress and subsequent legislative behaviors, finding that candidates who received more party support during the primary election were more likely to engage in partisan efforts in the next Congress. Further, party support of incoming legislators is linked to increased partisan behavior through leapfrog representation. We find that these relationships are stronger for majority party candidates, suggesting that parties put a greater emphasis on winning majorities when in the minority but a greater emphasis on policy congruence when in the majority.

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Ideological Primary Competition and Congressional Behavior

Cited by 7 publications

References 24 publications

White Constituents and Congressional Voting

White Constituents and Congressional Voting

The primary threat: How the surge of ideological challengers is exacerbating partisan polarization

Shifting party goals: Party electoral support and legislative behavior in the majority and the minority

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