The Theory of Conditional Retrospective Voting: Does the Presidential Record Matter Less in Open-Seat Elections?

Abstract

This research tests the idea that retrospective voting in presidential elections is conditional, that retrospective evaluations are applied more strictly to incumbents seeking election than to in-party candidates (successor candidates) who are not incumbents. Voters may assign only partial credit or blame for national conditions to successor candidates because, unlike incumbents, these candidates did not personally have power over the policies that might have affected the national conditions leading up to the election. This theory of conditional retrospective voting is examined at both the aggregate level on elections since 1948 and with individual-level survey data since 1972. The analysis consistently finds, as the theory of conditional retrospective voting contends, that the electorate’s retrospective evaluations matter significantly more to the vote for an incumbent than to the vote for a successor candidate of the in-party.