Aggregate Effects Of Congressional Elections

NATIONAL POLITICS AND CONGRESSIONAL ELECTIONS

The electoral politics of Congress may center largely on individual candidates and campaigns, but it is the collective results of congressional elections that shape the course of national politics. Subject of the chapter →how the millions of individual voting decisions in hundreds of districtly individual contests combine to produce intelligible election results.
Before the tools of survey research came into common use, politicians and political analysts had little problem interpreting aggregate congressional election results. It was widely believed that economic conditions and presidential politics shaped the electoral prospects of congressional candidates. It is no great challenge to interpret
congressional elections as national events controlled by national political conditions.
The strong connection between aggregate economic variables and aggregate election results naturally inspired scholars to investigate the effects of economic conditions on individual voting behavior. At least four different kinds of economic variables might influence the vote choice: personal financial experiences and expectations, perceptions of general economic conditions, evaluations of the government’s economic performance, and party images on economic policies.
Coattail Effects →the notion that successful candidates at the top of the ticket - in national elections, the winning presidential candidate - pull some of their party’s candidates into office along with them, riding, as it were, on their coattails.
A presidential winner whose success is not shared by other candidates of his party is presumed to have no coattails.
Party identifiers who voted for the other party’s presidential candidate were a good deal more likely also to for the other party’s House or Senate candidate as well in every election year. The aggregate effects of presidential coattails depend on how defection rates differ between the two parties’ identifiers.
The vote decision is strongly influenced by the voters’ knowledge and evaluations of the particular set of candidates running in the district or state. National issues such as the state of the economy or the performance of the president may influence some voters some of the time but for many voters the congressional choice is determined by evaluations of candidates as individuals, often with little reference to national policies or
personalities. More experienced non-incumbent candidates run more lavishly financed campaigns when the incumbent seems vulnerable or when no incumbent is running. Another important consideration is whether it promises to be a good or bad year for the party. National economic and political conditions might affect congressional elections because congressional elites expect them to do so.
Challengers must accomplish two basic tasks to succeed: build support for themselves and undermine that of their incumbent opponents.

Özetin Özeti • Economic conditions; Presidential approval; trends in Congressional control. Why are these related? • STRATEGIC CANDIDATES enter races when their chances are better. Thus, you get higher-quality candidates when the incumbent party is facing bad economic conditions or low presidential approval. • COATTAILS have real, nontrivial effects. Why? • Same reason. Better candidates enter when times are good. • Also looks at split-ticket voting (why not coattails sometimes?) • REVIEWS of last twenty years' House and Senate races. Main point:
A TURNOVER in Congressional control requires both:
1- Potent issues (economic conditions and presidential approval)
2- Strong challengers.

Chapter 7 – ELECTION, REPRESENTATION, AND THE POLITICS of CONGRESS

Theme of the chapter → how members win and hold office powerfully affects the internal organization of the houses of Congress, the kind of legislation they produce, and the kind of representation Americans therefore receive.
Congress is a representative assembly because its members are chosen in competitive popular elections, and if voters do not like what the members are doing, they can vote them out of office. Aggregate representation is necessarily crude and rests on somewhat shaky foundations, depending, as it does, partly on the self-reinforcing expectations of congressional elites. • Policy congruence: Hard to measure, but apparently reasonably good congruence between district opinion and roll call voting. • National causes: Some reps become the voice of a national cause (black rights, pro-life, etc.) • Not descriptive representation.
Among the most familiar targets for congressional critics’ scorn is members’ notorious affection for policies that produce particularized benefits. The influence of Congress’s fondness for particularized benefits goes beyond public works and tax breaks. A more fundamental problem with particularized benefits is Congress is forever tempted to overproduce
them. Congress serves the vocal, organized, and active. The system naturally favors any politically attentive group that is present in significant numbers in a large number of states or districts. • Particularized. Policy serves local, not national, needs. • Policy favors organized interests, not latent interests. • Responsiveness to district without national responsibility.
Congress’s decentralized, specialized legislative committee systems could not work effectively without some means for coordinating the activities of its diverse parts. • You need parties to organize the legislative agenda and keep disparate committees working toward it. • In recent years, party leaders have gained increasing power.
As the parties became more unified, they also became more polarized along ideological lines. Republicans grew, on average, steadily more conservative. Democrats became more liberal as their party’s conservative southern members were gradually replaced in Congress by Republicans, leaving the remaining southern Democrats ideologically more similar to other congressional Democrats. If elections shape congressional behavior, then growing party divisions in Congress must reflect concurrent changes in electoral politics. But the sharpening of the partisan conflict in Congress also affects electoral politics by shaping and clarifying the choices faced by voters. • Conservatives are increasingly Republican. • Driven partly by Southern realignment, but also a national trend. • An endogenous relationship between “voters realigning” and “parties offering more polar offerings”.
The idea of term limits → is popular, but not likely to do what is hoped. It would probably increase the influence of special interests (esp. during the last term), increase the role of money in politics (since open races are the most expensive to fund), reduce incentives to maintain strong ties with a district (since developing ties takes a long time, and the benefits of doing so are far in the future), etc.
The public doesn't like the bickering, backroom deals, etc. In effect, they want democracy without having to witness democracy. As long as Congress remains an institution that makes agreements, then, the public is not likely to enjoy Congress.
The parties have become increasingly regional, with Republicans concentrated in the South, plains, and mountain west, Democrats in the north.