Congressional Primaries Research Articles

The Selling of Experience in the 2022 Congressional Elections

Past experience in elective office has always been the best predictor of congressional candidate success in elections. These “quality” candidates come into elections with experience fundraising, name recognition, and general knowledge about how to run a successful campaign. Yet, recent congressional elections have seen an increase in the electoral success of inexperienced candidates. As past experience in office may no longer be valued as it once was, how are these experienced candidates marketing themselves to voters? Are they still leaning into their past experience in elected office or are they more likely to emphasize other occupations and experiences? We expect candidates brand themselves, emphasizing different experiences, based on the type of election they are in and who they are running against. In order to test these expectations, this paper examines all available biography pages of experienced candidates who ran in congressional primaries in 2022. We find clear partisan differences in what candidates past occupational backgrounds they highlight. We find mixed evidence that decisions about what occupations to emphasize vary based on electoral dynamics.

The Primary Path for Turning Legislative Effectiveness into Electoral Success

Effective lawmakers are the workhorses of the US Congress, yet we know little about the electoral payoffs of their efforts. Are effective lawmakers better at warding off challengers in the next election? Do they win at a greater rate? To answer these questions, we draw on original data on congressional primary elections from 1980 to 2016, allowing us to focus on elections that lack partisan cues and where voters tend to be highly knowledgeable about politics. We find that incumbents receive an electoral boost in congressional primaries from their legislative work in Congress. Ineffective lawmakers are more likely to face quality challengers, and they lose their primaries at a greater rate than do more effective lawmakers. These differences diminish in the complex informational environment of a primary with multiple challengers. These findings provide important insights into the conditions under which voters hold their elected representatives accountable for their legislative successes and failures.

The Party's Primary Preferences: Race, Gender, and Party Support of Congressional Primary Candidates

AbstractParty support has a strong influence on candidate success in the primary. What remains unexplored is whether party actions during the primary are biased along racial and gender lines. Using candidate demographic data at the congressional level and measures of party support for primary candidates, we test whether parties discriminate against women and minority candidates in congressional primaries and also whether parties are strategic in their support of minority candidates in certain primaries. Our findings show parties are not biased against minority candidates and also that white women candidates receive more support from the Democratic Party than do other types of candidates. Our findings also suggest that parties do not appear to strategically support minority candidates in districts with larger populations of minorities. Lastly, we also find no significant differences in the effects of party support on the likelihood of success in the primary by candidate race or gender.

Party crashers: Interest groups as a latent threat to party networks in congressional primaries

Recent research asserts that coalitions of party leaders, interest groups, and activists will cooperate to support the nomination of mutually acceptable candidates in primary elections. In this article, I utilize an original data set containing FEC contributions and expenditures data for 1648 candidates who ran in open seat primary elections for the US House from 2006 to 2016 to measure the extent and effects of coordination among interest groups and party organizations. I find that Democratic-aligned interest groups and party leaders coordinate more often and with a more positive substantive effect than their Republican counterparts. Moreover, I provide evidence that, with the advent of super PACs in the second half of the 2010 primary cycle, a small number of interest groups can act as a latent threat to broader coalitions that unite behind a candidate using independent expenditures to outspend the broader coalitions. This increased resource parity has tangible representational consequences.

Independent expenditures in congressional primaries after Citizens United: Implications for interest groups, incumbents and political parties

This article examines how Citizens United affected the balance of power among ‘outside’ groups in congressional primaries through 2014. Contrary to predictions of massive independent expenditures (IEs) by large corporations, the article documents: (i) an increase in the number and diversity of IE groups together with a decreased concentration of effort among them; (ii) a relative decrease in the power of factional outsiders; (iii) the emergence of ephemeral ‘in-and-out’ groups; and (iv) among these, the emergence of single-candidate PACs (political action committees), with the most significant growth being among those allied with incumbent office holders. The article also speaks to some of the recent literature on political parties. The Super PACs most closely allied with the congressional party leaders, despite unlimited contributions, continued to choose not to invest in contested primaries, raising doubts about recent arguments to the effect that unlimited contributions to the parties would be likely to make a substantial difference in determining who runs under the party’s label in a general election.

Independent Expenditures in Congressional Primaries after Citizens United

This article examines how Citizens United affected the balance of power among ‘outside’ groups in congressional primaries through 2014. Contrary to predictions of massive independent expenditures (IEs) by large corporations, the article documents: (1) an increase in the number and diversity of IE groups together with a decreased concentration of effort among them; (2) a relative decrease in the power of factional outsiders; (3) the emergence of ephemeral ‘in-and-out’ groups; and (4) among these, the emergence of single-candidate PACs, with the most significant growth being among those allied with incumbent office holders. The article also speaks to some of the recent literature on political parties. The Super PACs most closely allied with the congressional party leaders, despite unlimited contributions, continued to choose not to invest in contested primaries, raising doubts about recent arguments to the effect that unlimited contributions to the parties would be likely to make a substantial difference in determining who runs under the party’s label in a general election.

Congressional primary elections

1. Why Study Congressional Primaries? 2. Primary Elections and the Democratic Experiment. 3. The Strategic Context of Congressional Primaries. 4. Open Seat Primaries. 5. Challenger Primaries. 6. Incumbent Primaries. 7. Race, Redistricting, and Primary Elections. 8. Primary Reform.

Does the Party Matter? Endorsements in Congressional Primaries

Research suggests that endorsements should affect outcomes in low-information elections such as primaries, but that hypothesis has not yet been tested empirically. Based on a survey of 2002 congressional campaigns, this article describes the universe of individuals and groups that offer endorsements to primary candidates and analyzes their effects on primary election results. It finds that a primary candidate’s share of the partisan endorsements issued in the race significantly affects the candidate’s vote share, even controlling for campaign funds and candidate quality. Implications for theories of candidate emergence and success are discussed.

Legislative women: getting elected, getting ahead

Understanding the Complex World of Women in US Politics - B. Reingold. Getting Elected. Competing in Congressional Primaries - J.L. Lawless and K. Pearson. Political Parties, Fundraising, and Sex - B. Burrell. Confronting Stereotypes and Double Standards in Campaign Communication - D. Bystrom. Symbolic Mobilization? The Impact of Candidate Sex - K. Dolan. Does Running as a Woman Mobilize Voters? - A.K. Stokes-Brown and M.O. Neal. Getting Ahead. Policy Leadership Beyond Women's Issues - M.L. Swers. Committee Assignments: Discrimination or Choice? - S.J. Carroll. Representing Gender and Ethnicity: Strategic Intersectionality - L.R. Fraga, V. Martinez-Ebers, L. Lopez, and R. Ramirez. Gender, Race, and the Exercise of Power and Influence - W.G. Smooth. Climbing Higher: Opportunities and Obstacles within the Party System - C.S. Rosenthal. Conclusion. Taking Stock and Setting a New Agenda - K. O'Connor.

The Marketplace of democracy: electoral competition and American politics

Since 1998, U.S. House incumbents have won a staggering 98 percent of their reelection races. Electoral competition has also declined in some state and primary elections. The Marketplace for Democracy combines the resources of two eminent research organizations --Brookings and the Cato Institute --to address several important questions about our democratic system. How pervasive is the lack of competition in arenas only previously speculated on, such as state legislative contests and congressional primaries? What have previous reform efforts, such as direct primaries and term limits, had on electoral competition? What are the effects of redistricting and campaign finance regulation? What role do third parties play? In sum, what does all this tell us about what might be done to increase electoral competition? The authors, including a number of today's most important scholars in American politics, consider the historical development, legal background, and political aspects of a system that is supposed to be responsive and accountable yet for many is becoming stagnant, self-perpetuating, and tone-deaf. How did we get to this point, and what --if anything --should be done about it? Elections are the vehicles through which Americans choose who governs them, and the power of the ballot is still the best lever ordinary citizens have in keeping public officials accountable. The Marketplace of Democracy considers different policy options for increasing the competition needed to keep American politics vibrant, responsive, and democratic. Contributors include Stephen Ansolabehere (MIT), William D. Berry (Florida State University), Bruce Cain (University of California-Berkeley), Thomas Carsey (Florida StateUniversity) James Gimpel (University of Maryland) John Hanley (UC-Berkeley), John Mark Hansen (University of Chicago), Paul S. Herrnson (University of Maryland) Gary Jacobson (University of California-San Diego) Thad Kousser (UC-San Diego), Frances Lee (University of Maryland), John Matsusaka (University of Southern California), Kenneth Mayer (University of Wisconsin-Madison), Michael P. McDonald (Brookings Institution and George Mason University), Jeffrey Milyo (University of Missouri-Columbia), Richard Niemi (University of Rochester) Nate Persily (University of Pennsylvania Law School), Lynda Powell (University of Rochester), David Primo (University of Rochester), John Samples (Cato Institute), and James Snyder Jr. (MIT).

When Bad Press Is Good News

This article identifies conditions under which bad press can help rather than hurt a congressional campaign. In elections such as congressional primaries, where information levels are extremely low and party cues do not help voters distinguish candidates, name recognition is perhaps the most important factor. In these situations, even negative coverage can benefit a campaign because it raises voter familiarity with the candidate. The author illustrates this phenomenon using two cases studies, the 1992 Republican primary in Ohio’s 15th district and the 2001 Democratic primary in Massachusetts’ 9th district. In both cases, the victor was also the candidate who received the most negative news coverage. It seems that the volume but not the tone affected voters’ assessments of the candidates. The article concludes with thoughts about how these observations speak to the larger literatures on campaigns and the media.

Congressional primaries and the politics of representation

Chapter 1 Preface Chapter 2 Introduction: Nomination Politics and Congressional Representation Chapter 3 Congressional Primaries in Historical and Theoretical Context Chapter 4 Primary Elections as a Deterrence to Candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives Chapter 5 The Benefits and Burdens of Congressional Primary Elections Chapter 6 Campaign Finance in U.S. House Primary and General Elections Chapter 7 Elections and Amateurs: The Christian Right in the 1988 Congressional Campaigns Chapter 8 The Polarizing Effects of Congressional Primaries Chapter 9 The Effects of Electoral Rules on Congressional Primaries Chapter 10 Explaining the Ideological Differences Between the Two U.S. Senators Elected from the Same State: An Institutional Effects Model Chapter 11 California's Experience with the Blanket Primary

Constitutional Law: Congressional Primaries: Voting Rights of Negroes

Constitutional Law: Congressional Primaries: Voting Rights of Negroes