The Generic Ballot in Midterm Congressional Elections: Its Accuracy and Relationship to House Seats

Moore, David W.; Saad, Lydia

doi:10.1086/297819

Cited by 7 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…For the 18 midterm elections since World War II, the results of the generic ballot test are highly correlated with the party division of the national popular vote for the House (r=.82). The generic ballot also can accurately predict seat swing in midterm elections when incorporated in a statistical forecasting model (Abramowitz 2010; Abramowitz 2014; McGhee and Baldassare 2004; Moore and Saad 1997). In this article, I use results of a simple three-variable model including the generic ballot to provide conditional forecasts of seat swing in the 2018 midterm election.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Will Democrats Catch a Wave? The Generic Ballot Model and the 2018 US House Elections

Abramowitz

2018

APSC

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confidence: 99%

Will Democrats Catch a Wave? The Generic Ballot Model and the 2018 US House Elections

Abramowitz

2018

APSC

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“…While these factors shape partisan competition over the power to set the agenda on Capitol Hill, is this partisan competition indicative of realized electoral outcomes in November? While scholars have assessed the degree to which partisan competition, as measured by the generic ballot differential, is predictive of the partisan normal vote (Moore & Lydia, 1997; Bafumi et al, 2010); much of this work is situated only within the context of midterm elections in the House. Moreover, no previous work seeks to situate partisan campaign competition over the legislative majority as a predictor of observed partisan electoral outcomes with respect to both the normal vote and seat turnover realized in a bicameral fashion.…”

Section: Competition As Predictor Of National Partisan Seat Turnovermentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of Partisan Competition for Legislative Majorities in the U.S. House & Senate, 1959–2020

Algara

2024

American Politics Research

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What drives partisan competition over the pursuit of legislative majorities in contemporary congressional elections? While conventional wisdom suggests that the chances of a legislative majority is largely predicated on the public’s ideological policy preferences or national standing of the president, there is little work assessing the dynamics of partisan competition over the course of the electoral cycle. Leveraging over 60 years of new generic congressional ballot data measuring the monthly preference of the mass public’s partisan presence for the congressional majority, this paper finds that partisan competition for the majority largely centers on the national policy mood and the public perception of presidential performance rather than partisan conflict. This paper validates the importance of these findings relating to partisan competition for the legislative majority by showing that this electoral competition plays a significant role in predicting the national normal popular vote and partisan seat turnover from 1960 to 2020.

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“…The answer to the question ''how accurate are the generic polls?'' must be nuanced (Erikson and Sigelman 1995;Moore and Saad 1997). Generic polls perform poorly as point estimates; the leading party in the polls typically ends up with a smaller lead on Election Day.…”

Section: Generic Polls Of the Congressional Votementioning

confidence: 99%

Balancing, Generic Polls and Midterm Congressional Elections

Bafumi

Erikson

Wlezien

2010

The Journal of Politics

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One mystery of U.S. politics is why the president's party regularly loses congressional seats at midterm. Although presidential coattails and their withdrawal provide a partial explanation, coattails cannot account for the fact that the presidential party typically performs worse than normal at midterm. This paper addresses the midterm vote separate from the presidential year vote, with evidence from generic congressional polls conducted during midterm election years. Polls early in the midterm year project a normal vote result in November. But as the campaign progresses, vote preferences almost always move toward the out party. This shift is not a negative referendum on the president, as midterms do not show a pattern of declining presidential popularity or increasing salience of presidential performance. The shift accords with ''balance'' theory, where the midterm campaign motivates some to vote against the party of the president in order to achieve policy moderation.

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The Generic Ballot in Midterm Congressional Elections: Its Accuracy and Relationship to House Seats

Cited by 7 publications

References 3 publications

Will Democrats Catch a Wave? The Generic Ballot Model and the 2018 US House Elections

Will Democrats Catch a Wave? The Generic Ballot Model and the 2018 US House Elections

Dynamics of Partisan Competition for Legislative Majorities in the U.S. House & Senate, 1959–2020

Balancing, Generic Polls and Midterm Congressional Elections

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