Congressional Candidates Research Articles

Helping to Break the Glass Ceiling? Fathers, First Daughters, and Presidential Vote Choice in 2016

Throughout her 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton crafted messages intended to appeal to fathers of daughters and to highlight the implications of her historic nomination for American girls and women. Clinton reminded voters that her election could mean that “fathers will be able to say to their daughters, you, too, can grow up to be president” (Frizell, Time, http://time.com/3920332/transcript-full-text-hillary-clinton-campaign-launch/ , 2015). But did these appeals succeed in mobilizing fathers of daughters to support Clinton? Using original cross sectional and experimental survey data from the 2016 CCES, we ask two questions. First, were men who fathered daughters (a life event which we operationalize, for important methodological and theoretical reasons detailed herein, as men who fathered a daughter as their first child) more likely to support, and vote for, Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election than were those who fathered sons as their first child? Second, were Clinton’s direct appeals to fathers of daughters effective in increasing her electoral support? We find that fathers who have daughters as their first child are more likely to prefer and vote for Clinton, and are more likely to support a fictional female congressional candidate using a “Clintonesque” appeal that emphasizes expanding opportunities for “our daughters.” These results suggest that entry into fatherhood with a daughter (as opposed to with a son) is a formative experience for men that has consequences for their political choices in later life. Our conclusions inform the growing literature on the implications of fathering daughters on men’s political behavior.

Advertising Ideology: Using Crowd-Sourced Measurement to Understand Campaigns

We develop a subjective measure of candidate ideology in political communication, based on human coders evaluations of ideological position-taking in campaign advertisements. Our dynamic measure allows researchers to track campaign strategies within an election cycle and across ideologically distinct groups of voters. As an application of our approach, we analyze candidates ideological brand building in US House and Senate elections in 2010 and find evidence that structural features of US elections constrain the ideological brands of congressional candidates. We show that Democratic Senate candidates represented themselves as ideologically liberal in areas that strongly supported President Obama in 2008, but moderated their ideological message in more competitive areas. By contrast, we find no evidence of strategic branding among Republicans. Our results reveal one way in which fine-grained observational measures of political communications illustrate strategic ideological posturing that existing measures based on campaign donations or roll call votes cannot identify.

Las campañas políticas de los diputados federales en México. Esfuerzos basados en los candidatos y en los partidos

Este artículo analiza las distintas formas en las que los candidatos mexicanos al Congreso llevan a cabo sus campañas en distritos electorales uninominales. Con este propósito, se estudian tanto los incentivos de los líderes de partido, como la fuerte probabilidad de que los diputados y los senadores regresen a sus localidades para seguir con sus carreras políticas y, por tanto, el estudio no se limita ni a los efectos del sistema electoral ni a los periodos de mandato. El artículo sostiene que las teorías que sólo toman en cuenta las reglas electorales soslayan tanto la importancia de la dirigencia del partido, como las diferentes maneras en las que los diputados federales que pretenden cargos en el gobierno pueden continuar sus carreras políticas. A partir de una base de datos de las actividades de campaña de una muestra de candidatos de los tres principales partidos políticos de México, la primera parte del artículo plantea que los candidatos plurinominales tienen un papel activo en las campañas. En la segunda, el artículo explica que una vez que han hecho campaña en distritos competitivos y que han adquirido más experiencia personal, los candidatos emprenden actividades de votación más personales. Sin embargo, las oficinas nacionales de partido también participan activamente en las campañas federales de diputados y senadores, lo cual pone de relieve la naturaleza mixta de las campañas modernas.

Is the equalization/normalization lens dead? Social media campaigning in US congressional elections

PurposeEarly information technology scholarship centered on the internet’s potential to be a democratizing force was often framed using an equalization/normalization lens arguing that either the internet was going to be an equalizing force bringing power to the masses, or it was going to be normalized into the existing power structure. The purpose of this paper is to argue that considered over time the equalization/normalization lens still sheds light on our understanding of how social media (SM) strategy can shape electoral success asking if SM are an equalizing force balancing the resource gap between candidates or are being normalized into the modern campaign.Design/methodology/approachSM metrics and electoral data were collected for US congressional candidates in 2012 and 2016. A series of additive and interactive models are employed to test whether the effects of SM reach on electoral success are conditional on levels of campaign spending.FindingsThe results suggest that those candidates who spend more actually get more utility for their SM campaign than those who spend less in 2012. However, by 2016, spending inversely correlates with SM campaign utility.Research limitations/implicationsThe findings indicate that SM appeared to be normalizing into the modern congressional campaign in 2012. However, with higher rates of penetration and greater levels of usage in 2016, the SM campaign utility was not a result of higher spending. SM may be a greater equalizing force now.Practical implicationsCampaigns that initially integrate digital and traditional strategies increase the effectiveness of the SM campaign because the non-digital strategy both complements and draws attention to the SM campaign. However, by 2016 the SM campaign was not driven by its relation to traditional campaign spending.Originality/valueThis is the first large N study to examine the interactive effects of SM reach and campaign spending on electoral success.

Jumping on the Trump Train or Ditching the Donald: Campaign Rhetoric and the 2016 Congressional Election

The 2016 general election presented an unusual challenge to Republican congressional candidates: whether to market one’s campaign as aligned with or against Donald Trump’s controversial candidacy. In this paper, we determine what district and member-level factors influence candidate endorsements of Trump for president. Second, we study if the endorsements hurt candidates on Election Day. We find that underlying political partisanship, as measured by Mitt Romney’s 2012 vote share in congressional districts, predicts much of incumbents’ support for Trump, and that candidates’ support did not harm them in the general election.

Regulating Campaign Finance through Legislative Recusal Rules

Regulating Campaign Finance through Legislative Recusal Rules

Who Punishes Extremist Nominees? Candidate Ideology and Turning Out the Base in US Elections

Political observers, campaign experts, and academics alike argue bitterly over whether it is more important for a party to capture ideologically moderate swing voters or to encourage turnout among hardcore partisans. The behavioral literature in American politics suggests that voters are not informed enough, and are too partisan, to be swing voters, while the institutional literature suggests that moderate candidates tend to perform better. We speak to this debate by examining the link between the ideology of congressional candidates and the turnout of their parties’ bases in US House races, 2006–2014. Combining a regression discontinuity design in close primary races with survey and administrative data on individual voter turnout, we find that extremist nominees—as measured by the mix of campaign contributions they receive—suffer electorally, largely because theydecreasetheir party’s share of turnout in the general election, skewing the electorate towards their opponent’s party. The results help show how the behavioral and institutional literatures can be connected. For our sample of elections, turnout appears to be the dominant force in determining election outcomes, but it advantages ideologically moderate candidates because extremists appear to activate the opposing party’s base more than their own.

Stewardship, credibility and political communications: A content analysis of the 2016 election

Public participation in the democratic process and trust in elected leaders are both declining. Drawing on research from the fields of public relations and communications, this content analysis examines political communication through the lens of credibility and stewardship, both concepts central to predicting favorable relationship maintenance outcomes. In this analysis of all presidential, Senate and congressional candidates in the 2016 election, findings indicated that candidates more commonly communicate ways to provide support for the campaign (relationship nurturing), than demonstrating that they are worthy of being entrusted by the public. In addition, candidates’ communication primarily centered on the candidate being a credible source, neglecting other strategies for demonstrating credibility (digital and content). While there were no significant differences by party affiliation, incumbents and presidential candidates were more likely to communicate some forms of stewardship and credibility.

Time Suck: How the Fundraising Treadmill Diminishes Effective Governance

There are just not enough hours in the day to get the job done! This type of “time drought” identified by cognitive scientists takes on democratic significance if the person experiencing it is a democratically elected official. Those elected officials may thereby lack the ability to effectively represent the constituents who put them in office. For federal elected officials, one of the causes of the lack of time to craft policy (the job) is caused by political fundraising burdens (the distraction). As one Congressman put it bluntly, campaign fundraising has become an incredible “time suck” for lawmakers. The election in 2016 was the most expensive federal election to date. The high price tag in 2016 was attributable to Congressional races. Thus my primary focus in this piece will be on the fundraising burdens experienced by incumbent Members of Congress. Participating in the fundraising arms race is rational behavior for most candidates, because typically the candidate with the bigger campaign war chest wins the election. This fundraising treadmill leads to deleterious effects including dependence on lobbyists for fundraising assistance and for policy making, as well as an unhealthy reliance on a small oligarchic subset of American political donors. Without public financing for Congressional candidates, the only way to avoid the burden of fundraising is to be independently wealthy. And yet, the Roberts Supreme Court seems particularly tone deaf to arguments about preserving the ability of a non-wealthy incumbent elected officials to do their official duties under Article I of the Constitution.

Bayesian sensitivity analysis for causal effects from $2\times2$ tables in the presence of unmeasured confounding with application to presidential campaign visits

Presidents often campaign on behalf of candidates during elections. Do these campaign visits increase the probability that the candidate will win? While one might attempt to answer this question by adjusting for observed covariates, such an approach is plagued by serious data limitations. In this paper we pursue a different approach. Namely, we ask: what, if anything, should one infer about the causal effect of a presidential campaign visit using a simple cross-tabulation of the data? We take a Bayesian approach to this problem and show that if one is willing to use substantive information to make some (possibly weak) assumptions about the nature of the unmeasured confounding, sharp posterior estimates of causal effects are easy to calculate. Using data from the 2002 midterm elections, we find that, under a reasonable set of assumptions, a presidential campaign visit on the behalf of congressional candidates helped those candidates win elections.

Does the Ideological Proximity Between Candidates and Voters Affect Voting in U.S. House Elections?

Do citizens hold congressional candidates accountable for their policy positions? Recent studies reach different conclusions on this important question. In line with the predictions of spatial voting theory, a number of recent survey-based studies have found reassuring evidence that voters choose the candidate with the most spatially proximate policy positions. In contrast, most electoral studies find that candidates’ ideological moderation has only a small association with vote margins, especially in the modern, polarized Congress. We bring clarity to these discordant findings using the largest dataset to date of voting behavior in congressional elections. We find that the ideological positions of congressional candidates have only a small association with citizens’ voting behavior. Instead, citizens cast their votes “as if” based on proximity to parties rather than individual candidates. The modest degree of candidate-centered spatial voting in recent Congressional elections may help explain the polarization and lack of responsiveness in the contemporary Congress.

Republican Candidates' Positions on Donald Trump in the 2016 Congressional Elections: Strategies and Consequences

Donald Trump's nomination posed a challenge for Republican congressional candidates running on the ticket with him in 2016. The nominee's intense base of support within the party combined with his unprecedented unpopularity more broadly required these candidates to think strategically about supporting or opposing him. This article examines how they responded to that challenge, what explains their different responses, and what electoral consequences ensued from their choices. The data show that candidates' positions on Trump primarily reflected the partisanship of their districts and secondarily their gender and incumbency status. Their strategic choices had little general impact in an election almost completely dominated by partisanship, but in at least a few instances refusal to support Trump may have been necessary for the Republican incumbent to win reelection.

Supporting Tax Policy Change Through Accounting Discretion: Evidence from the 2012 Elections

Some corporations attempt to lessen their tax burden through involvement in the legislative process. We identify firms that contributed to congressional candidates who favor reductions in the U.S. corporate statutory tax rate. This support created a temporary incentive to manage effective tax rates (ETRs) up. We document that these firms increased their reported effective tax rate in the two calendar quarters preceding the 2012 election relative to adjacent periods and other firms supporting candidates in the same election. We find that the variation in upward ETR management is correlated with firm-level proxies for potential reputational costs, capital markets costs, and long-run tax burdens. The variation in upward ETR management is also correlated with firm-candidate-level proxies for strength of relationships and competitiveness of election races. Our findings provide new evidence on accounting choices in support of corporate political activity and on the political cost hypothesis in the tax setting. The online appendix is available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2017.2842 . This paper was accepted by Shivaram Rajgopal, accounting.

When the Going Gets Tough: Issue Environments and Gendered Negativity Strategies*

ObjectiveIn theory, gender expectations may influence candidate's negativity strategies. However, these gender expectations interact with other factors, such as party expectations and the election's issue environment. This study seeks to determine if candidate gender, opponent gender, and issue environment affect negativity strategies.MethodsThe study analyzes the ads purchased by U.S. congressional candidates in the 2004 and 2008 election cycles.ResultsThe analyses show that gender and party expectations, moderated by the issue environment of the election, affect levels of negativity. Democratic women and Republican men appear to be particularly sensitive to these contextual changes.ConclusionThe results bolster other findings that gender expectations are moderated by party expectations, as well as context dependent. In addition, given that women report more reluctance to run for office based on the potential of being involved in a negative campaign, the results provide insight as to why more women are not running for office.

Taking a Bite Out of the Crime Issue: Congressional Candidates and Partisan Benefits

This article examines the common assertion that the Republican Party “owns” the issue of crime, which holds that the party has garnered electoral support when crime is a salient political issue. Competing explanations about the origins of the American public’s crime concern are tested in an electoral context. Utilizing data on races for the U.S. House of Representatives and races for the U.S. Senate held from 1974 to 2008, the analyses show that increased salience of crime has provided electoral benefits for Republican candidates. Furthermore, they show that Republicans have increased these gains by responsively catering their message to the issue at times of peak concern. Altogether, the results provide support for Republican issue ownership of crime.

259 Emergency Medicine Political Action Committee Contributions in 2016 and Candidate Voting History on Firearm Background Checks

Firearm injuries are a leading cause of injurious death and traumatic ED visits in the U.S. The American College of Emergency Physicians’ (ACEP) Firearm Safety and Injury Prevention policy supports universal background checks for firearm transactions, encourages legislation that prevents high risk and prohibited individuals from obtaining firearms by any means, and calls for increased funding for research into firearm safety and injury prevention. We sought to determine the relationship between federal campaign contributions from the National Emergency Medicine Political Action Committee (NEMPAC), the largest emergency medicine political action committee, and candidates’ support of background check legislation. We analyzed NEMPAC’s contributions to House and Senate races in the 2016 election cycle to determine if the candidates they funded supported legislation favoring background checks. We obtained data on campaign contributions from OpenSecrets and legislative records from Project Vote Smart. Candidate support of background check legislation was measured by: 1) voting history on Senate Amendment 4750 (SA 4750) which called for universal background checks, and 2) co-sponsorship of H.R. 1217 which aimed to extend background checks to all commercial firearm sales, strengthen state cooperation with the national criminal background check system, and authorize a commission to study mass violence. We analyzed contributions in the 2016 election cycle compared to support for background checks. We limited the analysis to incumbents up for re-election as they had a record on these two bills. We report total contributions, average contribution per candidate, compared with t-tests, and proportion of candidates supported compared with chi-square tests. The Senate voted 44 for and 56 against SA 4750. In 2016 NEMPAC contributed $182,000 to 37 Senate candidates. Of this, $127,500 went to 21 of 29 incumbents up for re-election; $44,500 to 6 of 8 candidates who supported SA 4750 and $83,000 to 15 of 21 candidates who opposed SA 4750 ($5,563 vs. $3,952 per candidate, Dif $1,610, P = 0.25). NEMPAC supported 75% of incumbents who voted for SA 4750 compared to 71% of those against (P = .85). 189 House representatives co-sponsored H.R. 1217. In 2016, NEMPAC contributed $942,900 to 212 House candidates overall. Of this, $853,340 went to 187 of 394 incumbents up for re-election; $227,955 to 68 of 167 candidates who co-sponsored H.R. 1217 and $625,385 to 119 of 227 candidates who did not ($1,365 vs. $2,755 per candidate, Dif -$1,390, P < 0.01). NEMPAC supported 40.7% of candidates who co-sponsored H.R. 1217 compared to 52.4% of those who did not (P =.02). Analysis of contributions from NEMPAC to 2016 congressional candidates show that organized emergency medicine provided more total funding to incumbent candidates who did not support firearm background check legislation than to candidates in support of background check legislation. This analysis is limited as candidates’ positions on other issues of importance to ACEP and NEMPAC, such as tort reform, may be correlated with their positions on firearm legislation. Organized emergency medicine’s political contributions to 2016 congressional races were not aligned with ACEP’s policy on background checks.

Meritocracy And Analysis Of Pierre Bourdieu In The Recruitment Of Female Legislators In Medan And Deli Serdang

This study intends to find the current recruitment model for female members of legislative in the concept of meritocracy and the 30% female quota in parliament seat. The issue of money politic, dynasty politic, and woman quota are certainly far from the meritocracy concept that selected congressional members based on their skill and merit in politics. This research also intends to look at the capital in Pierre Bourdieu perversive also serve as a valuable tool for women legislative candidate to succeed in parliament. The intention of this research is to identify patterns in the current recruitment process in political parties as it relates to capital and the patriarchy system the permeate the world of women politics. This research uses a qualitative paradigm that utilizes the researcher as data miner through an in-depth interview. Also conducted with current women congressional members in Medan and Deli Serdang. Research indicates that there are three recruitment patterns for women congressional candidate; they are the close pattern, open pattern and semi-open pattern. Patriarchy system still dominant social, political relationship politic experienced by women members of legislative. These conditions include stereotypes, double burden subordination, and marginalization. These gender issues can be seen as advantage or disadvantages of a woman in the political realm. Women members of legislative have several capitals could be related to Bourdieu concepts such as economic capital, social capital, culture capital and symbolic capital. Other than that, whether they habitus or not, they win the election. The combination of habitus and four capital of Bourdieu has influenced the existence and dynamic of women in politic (field).

Do White In-group Processes Matter, Too? White Racial Identity and Support for Black Political Candidates

Scholars find that negative evaluations of Blacks lead Whites to vote against Black political candidates. However, can an in-group psychological process have the same effect? We consider White racial identity to be a strong candidate for such a process. We argue that the mere presence of a Black candidate cues the identity, reducing support for these candidates among Whites. We test this hypothesis on vote choice in seven instances. Five of them involve simple vote choice models: the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections, and three elections in 2010: The Massachusetts Gubernatorial election, Black candidates for the US House, and Black candidates for the US Senate. The other two are tests of the notion that White racial identity reduced President Obama’s approval, thus reducing support for all Democratic Congressional candidates in the 2010 Midterm and 2012 Congressional elections. We find support for these notions in all seven cases, across these seven elections, using four different survey research datasets, and four different measures of White identity. Comparisons with other presidential elections show that White identity did not significantly affect mono-racial elections. Furthermore, we find the White identity and racial resentment results to be very similar in terms of their robustness and apparent effect sizes. This indicates in-group evaluations, and those that focus on out-groups, operate independently of one another.

Modeling spending preferences & public policy

Understanding preferences over government spending is important for understanding electoral behavior and many other aspects of the political world. Using data on relative preferences for more or less spending across different issue areas, we estimate the general spending preferences of individuals and congressional candidates along a left-right spending dimension. Our modeling approach also allows us to estimate the location of policies on this same dimension, permitting direct comparison of people's spending preferences with where they perceive policy to be. We find that public shows very low levels of polarization on spending preferences, even across characteristics like partisanship, ideology, or income level. The distribution of candidates' spending preferences shows much more sorting by party, but candidates are significantly less polarized than is contemporary voting in Congress.

Corporate Political Contributions and the Allocation of U.S. Federal Procurement

This paper aims to determine the extent to which corporate political contributions and the allocation of government procurement contracts are related. We gather information regarding the contributions made by 911 S&P500 companies in 9 congressional election cycles between 1993 and 2010, and study subsequent government procurements. We find that making a contribution, especially to congressional candidates from the Democratic Party, is associated with a considerably higher likelihood of subsequently receiving a procurement contract. On average, a marginal contribution of 1 dollar is associated with 410 dollars in marginal procurements. Companies that contribute to a larger number of candidates subsequently get more procurement contract value. Furthermore, we show that the effects of contributions are persistent over time, that they vary strongly across industries and do not have negative spillovers on firm profitability regardless of the amount.