Nationalization in U.S. Senate and Gubernatorial Elections

Sievert, Joel; McKee, Seth C.

doi:10.1177/1532673x18792694

Cited by 51 publications

(54 citation statements)

References 51 publications

(76 reference statements)

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“…The standard deviation is 6.2 percentage points. This confirms expectations established by other research that nationalization in state races is quite high (Sievert and McKee, 2019). However, the standard deviation of 4 and 6 percentage points indicates that there is nonnegligible variation.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

“…Hopkins (2018) demonstrates that president and gubernatorial voting have been highly correlated over the past several decades. Sievert and McKee (2019) find increasing overlap between gubernatorial and senatorial voting. This relationship appears moderated by the degree of polarization among the national parties (Zingher and Richman, 2018).…”

Section: Recent Research On Nationalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Nationalization and Its Consequences for State Legislatures

Burke

2020

Social Science Quarterly

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Objective. I theorize that as nationalization increases, state legislatures will take less legislative actions related to local topics and take more legislative actions on divisive, national issues. Method. To measure nationalization I use election data as well as data on mass partisanship in a state. To measure a state's legislative agenda, I use data on legislative actions collected from LexisNexis. For my statistical analysis, I use two-way linear fixed effects regression. Results. I find that as nationalization increases, legislatures take less legislative actions pertaining to education, transportation, and localities. I also find that as nationalization increases, Republican-controlled states increase the number of legislative actions related to abortion. Conclusion. Taken together, the article provides evidence that nationalization delocalizes the agenda and places on the agenda issues associated with the national partisan conflict. A Tale of Two States After Donald Trump's election, Democrats in state offices rose immediately to challenge the administration. Washington was among the first states to do so. Attorney General Bob Ferguson (D-WA) sued the Trump administration in order to halt the controversial travel ban on seven majority-Muslim countries. Governor Jay Inslee (D-WA) applauded his state for challenging the "unjustified chaos and cruelty" set off by Trump's executive order (Wang, 2017). Upon a brief consideration of Washington state politics, the response by state officeholders is not surprising. Washington's state legislature was highly responsive to the national political debate throughout 2017 and 2018. To counter the tax cuts enacted by Republicans in Congress, Democrats in Olympia proposed a statewide capital gains tax. Gun control also received a great deal of attention in Olympia where legislators had put the issue on the ballot. Additionally, the Washington legislature sought to counter Trump's climate change deregulation crusade with a state-level carbon tax. Politics in Olympia appeared to parallel politics in DC. Three thousand miles away in Rhode Island, state politics was strikingly different. While many Democratic governors used their 2017 "State of the State" addresses to attack the Trump administration, Rhode Island's governor Gina Raimondo (D-RI) did not. Her address avoided mentions of income inequality, climate change, and President Trump (Raimondo, 2017). Instead, Raimondo celebrated the state's economic successes, which she attributed to tax cuts on corporations and energy. The subdued ideological tone of Rhode Island politics was evident in the 2018 gubernatorial campaign. According to Rhode Island news sources, the central concerns of the 2018 gubernatorial campaign were marijuana legalization and school safety, issues which are largely absent from the national agenda

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Section: Recent Research On Nationalizationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nationalization and Its Consequences for State Legislatures

Burke

2020

Social Science Quarterly

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“…Congressional scholars have long considered policy one of many lawmaker goals, but in a political time where a Democrat from Illinois looks increasingly like a Democrat from Colorado, national policy problems are likely to take precedence in a senator's agenda. Senators are tasked with national policy making (Sievert and McKee, 2018), despite their state representation. Senators’ governing rhetoric on Twitter is similar to trends in campaigns and among the public.…”

Section: Tweeting Policy‐focused Agendasmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Senators’ governing rhetoric on Twitter is similar to trends in campaigns and among the public. During elections, even low‐level politicians are stressing national issues and talking points provided from the two major parties (Sievert and McKee, 2018). High rates of straight party voting are now the norm (Abramowitz and Webster, 2016), reflecting national parties’ ability to frame down‐ballot races in terms of national policy debates.…”

Section: Tweeting Policy‐focused Agendasmentioning

confidence: 99%

Senate Representation on Twitter: National Policy Reputations for Constituent Communication

Russell

2020

Social Science Quarterly

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Objective. American politics has become more nationalized, and this trend is buoyed by senators' social media patterns that incentivize connections with an expansive digital constituency. This article examines how U.S. senators reflect and perpetuate this trend of national policy priorities with their constituent communication on Twitter. Methods. I investigate how senators reflect and perpetuate this era of national policy priorities by using a two-year data set of tweets to show how senators are using Twitter to articulate a robust policy agenda. Results. Senators' policy-driven messaging is the dominant style of reputation building on Twitter. Senators are adopting digital styles of representation that prioritize policy, positioning themselves as legislative experts to emphasize salient policies rather than local concerns. Conclusion. Senators are communicating a policy-first style of representation that meets the expectations of cultivated policy coalitions, and Twitter offers a birds-eye view of one source for the public's nationalized attention. Senators talk about how social media is making it easier to connect with constituents. In 2019, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley penned a local op-ed that touted his ability to keep his Iowa constituents informed with a single tweet or photo on Instagram. 1 Sen. Grassley is known for his retail politics on Twitter, fueling the perception is that Twitter allows for better and more comprehensive constituent communication given the potential for lowcost public engagement. Platforms such as Facebook and Twitter "enhance the ability of Members of Congress to fulfill their representational duties by providing greater opportunities for communication between the Member and individual constituents" (Glassman, Straus, and Shogan, 2010). In 2014, Twitter produced a handbook for politicians arguing that "the best way to earn a voter's support is no different today than it was a century ago: a simple handshake and a look in the eye… Twitter helps fill the void, enabling a virtual 'handshake.'" 2 But social media practices in the Senate, particularly on Twitter, rarely resemble localized, constituent conversations. Senators, despite representing the interests of a specific state, still curate a Twitter feed that looks a lot more like the rundown for the nightly news by capturing those issues that are most salient. Even Grassley himself admitted that Twitter is not actually the same as shaking someone's hand. Some senators, such as Sen. Grassley, use Twitter to address local questions and host town halls-making a habit of using Twitter to directly communicate with constituents. But Sen. Grassley appears to be an exception rather than the rule. In reality, many senators use their Twitter feeds to build

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“…Political science research supports many of these elements. American politics has indeed nationalized and polarized (Campbell 2018b; Caughey, Dunham, and Warshaw 2018; Hopkins 2018; Jacobson 2019; Rogers 2016; Sievert and McKee 2018; Zingher and Richman 2018). The congressional incumbency advantage has receded in recent years, making members increasingly vulnerable to national election tides (Jacobson 2015a).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Polls and Elections: Presidential Referendum Effects in the 2018 Midterm Election: An Initial Analysis

Cohen¹

2019

Pres Stud Q

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Using the recently released American National Election Studies (ANES) 2018 Pilot Study, this article tests for presidential referendum effects in House, Senate, and gubernatorial contests during that election cycle. Results find strong presidential referendum effects in spite of the considerable correlation between presidential approval and several political predispositions, notably partisan and ideological identification. Weak electoral performance of Republican candidates was due to President Donald Trump's overall low approval ratings. However, Trump approvers appeared more inclined to turn out to vote than disapprovers, which softened the negative effect of Trump's weak approval polls on Republican candidate vote totals. The conclusion discusses the potential implications of these findings for the upcoming 2020 presidential elections, especially if Trump approvers continue their turnout advantage over disapprovers.

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Nationalization in U.S. Senate and Gubernatorial Elections

Cited by 51 publications

References 51 publications

Nationalization and Its Consequences for State Legislatures

Nationalization and Its Consequences for State Legislatures

Senate Representation on Twitter: National Policy Reputations for Constituent Communication

Polls and Elections: Presidential Referendum Effects in the 2018 Midterm Election: An Initial Analysis

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