Jacobson Chapter 5. Voting requires not only a choice among competing candidates, but also the actual decision to go and vote. Turnout has declined.

Jacobson Chapter 5

Voting requires not only a choice among competing candidates, but also the actual decision to go and vote.

Turnout has declined considerably since the “Wonder Years.”

A majority of adult Americans DO NOT vote in congressional elections.

Why?

Short Answer: We don’t know exactly.

Political scientists have debated this for years.

The single demographic factor most strongly linked to participation—level of education—has been increasing while turnout has been decreasing.

To sum, members of Congress are elected by an unimpressive proportion of eligible voters.

Candidates, before the elections and once they get into office, are going to be more responsive to the needs of those who vote.

Factors that make voting more likely:◦ Education

Income Occupational status

◦ Age◦ Occupational groups (farmers, government

workers)◦ Region (turnout in the south is about 6% points

lower than other parts of the country)

That higher levels of education leads to higher turnout should be no surprise.

People with better cognitive skills and more political knowledge find the costs associated with political participation to be less, and the satisfaction greater.

So, if voters tend to be more highly educated, wealthier, and older than nonvoters, what does this have to say about representation in the United States?

Perhaps more importantly for our discussion, is whether or not the difference in participation levels of presidential vs. midterm elections actually has an impact on outcomes.

In other words, since many people who vote in presidential elections do not then also vote in midterms, is the electoral environment changed in significant ways?

One study found that the electorate for presidential elections consisted of a larger proportion of voters with weak ties to the parties.

They were subject to greater influence by political factors unique to specific elections.

The electorate in midterms lacked a significant portion of these votes and therefore outcomes were more determined by partisanship.

This resulted in a pattern dubbed “surge and decline.”

The winning presidential candidate’s party picked up congressional seats (the surge). However, many of these were lost at the next midterm when the pull of the presidential candidate was no longer operating (the decline).

This theory explained why, in every midterm election between 1934 and 1998, the president’s party lost seats in the House.

Turnout is important, not just because we want people to vote, but because it affects electoral outcomes.

Low turnout means that a large number of people have the potential to vote, but do not.

This also affects campaign strategies. Incumbents recognize that there are many people out there

who did not vote for them (even if they didn’t vote for the other candidate, either).

If the opposition can mobilize these people then they could lose (even if they had been winning by large margins previously).

The higher the turnout, the closer the election. Successful challengers draw to the polls people who normally

wouldn’t vote. So, incumbents have a vested interest in getting their

supporters to the polls and then depressing the turnout of everyone else.

The first modern surveys identified partisanship as the primary predictor of individual voting decisions, and it has remained so since then.

This strong psychological attachment was rooted in personal experience (think Great Depression) or from the family.

This does not mean that short term effects could not change an election, but once those short term effects were removed from the equation, the electorate would move back to its typical partisan orientation.

An alternative to the psychological attachment argument is that partisanship is simply a practical preference.

People attach themselves to a party because they have found, through past experience, that its candidates are more likely than those of the other party to produce the kinds of results they prefer.

Party ties are subject to modification, depending on the answer to the question, “What have you done for me lately?”

This explanation can explain why we see shifts in strength of party identification across time.

Which one do you think makes the most sense?

Regardless of how we interpret partisanship, it still remains the number one factor in predicting voting behavior (although that strength has varied somewhat over time).

Since the 1950s, we’ve mainly seen a consistent number of people identifying as “pure independents”—between 5% and 10% .

The main change we’ve seen has been in the number of people defecting from their preferred party. The biggest portion of these defections occurred from the late 1960s until the 1980s. By 1980 the number of loyal partisans was down to less than 70%.

Since then, the number of loyal partisans has gradually moved back up into the 80% range.

For House Elections

The decline in party loyalty had important consequences for elections.

The Figures in the text book clearly show that the growth in defections had the greatest impact on challengers.

Defectors very rarely defect to the challenger, rather they almost always defect to the incumbent.

Again, this is why incumbency is so important. This is why some political scientists have

suggested that, for some, incumbency is the “new” partisanship.

The simple knowledge of who the candidates are is strongly correlated with voting behavior.

Very few partisans defect if they remember the name of their party’s candidate but not that of the opponent.

More than half defect if they only remember the name of the OTHER party’s candidate.

Defection rates for voters who know both or neither candidate’s name fall in between.

Voters are much more likely to remember the names of incumbents.

However, just knowing whether or not an individual can remember a candidate’s name does not explain everything.

Incumbents are better known, however, as campaign spending has grown, familiarity with candidates has declined.

Familiarity with challengers has declined as well, but the difference is not enough to contribute to the rising value of incumbency.

Voters also tend to favor incumbents when they cannot remember either candidate’s name.

Additionally, voters are often willing to offer opinions about the candidates even when they can’t remember their names.

One big difference is whether or not the individual can actually recall or simply just recognize the name of the candidate.

Many who cannot recall a name from memory can recognize it on a list (for House elections voters are twice as likely to recognize rather than recall a candidate’s name).

More than 90% of voters recognize the incumbent’s name.

Only about half recognize the challenger’s name.

Senate candidates are better known in each category.

But again, incumbents are much better known than their challengers.

This familiarity is tied to the vote. The more familiar an individual is with a candidate

the more likely they are to vote for that candidate. Only about 3% of House voters and 13% of Senate

voters defected to candidates who were less familiar than their own party’s candidate.

Independents tend to support the better known candidate 84% of the time in House elections and 82% of the time in Senate elections.

Voters are far more likely to have had some form of contact or to have been “reached” by incumbents.

Additionally, Senate challengers are far more likely to reach voters than House challengers.

The probability that a voter will report having had contact with the candidate increases as campaign expenditures increase.

For challengers, a high-spending campaign can cut the incumbent’s lead in voter recall and recognition by more than half.

How well the voters know and like the candidates is directly related to the vote.

A few things from the tables on pg. 136 and 137:◦ Party Identification matters◦ Familiarity has an impact above and beyond

incumbency—suggesting that a large part of the incumbency advantage is tied to familiarity

◦ Voters who have only good things to say about one candidate and only bad things to say about the other are almost certain to vote for the favored candidate, regardless of party identification or incumbency

One of the most striking findings is that about 20% say they have had asked the House incumbent for assistance or information, received some reply, and therefore were able to offer an evaluation.

From this group, 56% were very satisfied with the response, and 90% of those voted for the incumbent.

Overall, the reactions of any person to the incumbent were favorable.

It’s almost always true that individual members have much higher approval ratings in their districts than Congress does as a whole.

As you might guess, the more positive reaction an individual has to the incumbent the more likely they are to vote for them.

One striking trend is that since the 1970s, the content of electoral politics—as it is refracted through the minds of voters—has become less personal, and more explicitly political.

When voters are asked open-ended questions about why they like or dislike a candidate…◦ Personal criteria continue to predominate among positive

comments about candidates.◦ Political criteria now predominate among negative

comments about candidates. This trend actually works at the detriment to

incumbents because they do much better in elections when voters focus on their personal virtues and district services rather than partisanship or ideology.

A few final points…survey evidence continues to show that all of the actions members of Congress are purported to undertake in pursuit of reelection still pay off in some way.

It is also true that the electoral strategy of discouraging the opposition before the campaign begins is effective and often effectively pursued.

Most incumbent House members face obscure, politically inexperienced opponents whose resources fall short of what it takes to mount a serious campaign.

So, what does it take to become a “winning challenger?”

Voters responses to survey questions about both challengers and incumbents in districts where the challenger won are sharply different from those in districts where the incumbent won.

Nearly half can recall the winning challengers name and nearly all can recognize and rate them on a thermometer scale.

Incumbents are also better known in these races, because a full-scale campaign increases visibility on both sides.

Additionally, winning challengers are always rated higher on the thermometer scale than incumbents.

When it comes to likes and dislikes, winning challengers do two things:◦ They make voters aware of their virtues◦ They make voters aware of the incumbents

shortcomings Additionally, voters were much more likely

to report contact with winning challengers than losers.

So, how does the winning challenger increase all of these positive conditions?

MONEY!

Money gives challengers the ability to reach a larger number of voters than challengers without money.

This increases name recognition and recall, but also provides the challenger with the opportunity to sell his/her message.

Winning House challengers, discussed in the text, spent over $600,000 on average, while losers averaged spending less than $140,000.

One last thing for Chapter 5. Issues can have a direct or indirect effect on

voting behavior in Congressional elections. Indirectly they can affect the vote choice

through some of the factors we’ve already discussed. Candidate evaluations for example.

But, they can also affect the vote choice directly.

Consider the War in Iraq or perhaps the health care legislation.