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State Legislative Elections

What We Know and Don't Know

University of Kentucky

This article summarizes research that has been done on state legislative elections since the ICPSR released computer files of these elections for the 1968-1986 period. The major topics include incumbent success, the effect of national trends, electoral causes of divided government, effects of districting systems on outcomes, and campaign finance. Suggestions are made for further research, and some of the methodological problems of such research are discussed. Particular attention is given to the need for merging these data with other electoral and contextual data. This is difficult because these data are seldom broken down by legislative district. There is a need to more clearly distinguish between incumbent advantages and the partisan control of districts in explaining incumbent success—an issue that raises methodological problems.

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