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Candidate Quality and the Election of Republican Governors in the South, 1950-2004

Barghothi, A. J., Savchak, E. C., Bowman, A. OM. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:45:36 PST

Following the Civil War, the Democratic Party enjoyed almost complete dominance in southern electoral politics. Democratic hegemony was particularly acute in gubernatorial elections: In most southern states, more than a century elapsed before the first Republican governor was elected. Gubernatorial electoral success is a fundamental question, given the prominence of governors in state politics and the importance of states in the federal system. Here, we develop a model that explains the election of Republican gubernatorial candidates. We find that election of Republican governors in the South was delayed because of a comparative lack of quality Republican gubernatorial candidates in that region throughout much of the 20th century. Our research clarifies the contradictions reported in prior work by demonstrating that the effect of candidate quality varies by party and region. Interestingly, the competitive advantage once enjoyed by the Democratic Party in the South is now firmly held by the Republican Party.

Racial Environment and Political Participation

Matsubayashi, T. — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 15:45:36 PST

How does the racial environment influence mass political participation? The power–threat hypothesis predicts that a larger out-group population in the surrounding environment increases citizen participation, whereas the relational goods hypothesis predicts that it decreases participation. I attempt to reconcile these conflicting arguments into a single hypothesis positing that citizens’ decisions to participate in politics are simultaneously shaped by the power–threat and relational goods effects. I conclude that the racial environment plays a significant role as a determinant of mass participation but in ways more complicated than what simple models of contextual effects suggest.

Deracializing Obama: White Voters and the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate Race

Andersen, D. J., Junn, J. — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:18:48 PDT

Using the unique circumstances of the 2004 Illinois U.S. Senate election, we report findings from survey data from a probability sample of White voters conducted in Illinois during the course of the 2004 election. In an experimental manipulation embedded in the survey, we tested four distinctive framings of Barack Obama by systematically altering the degree and content of his racialization as a Black man, and observing the effect of these treatments on evaluations of Obama. We hypothesize that more strongly racialized framings that highlight Obama's identity and connection with African Americans would push White voters toward more unfavorable evaluations of the candidate in comparison with deracialized framings. In addition, we argue that party identification has an important moderating influence on the relationship between the racialized treatment and respondents' evaluations of Obama.

Racing Toward Representation: A Hurdle Model of Latino Incorporation

Shah, P. — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:18:49 PDT

Despite 35 years of empirical research, the question of how electoral structure influences Latino representation continues to be debated. Motivated by the uncertainty surrounding electoral systems, in this article, I argue that the inconsistent and inconclusive results of previous research stem from two limitations—one theoretical and the other methodological—of commonly used models. In the following analysis, I use an alternative theoretical conceptualization and the appropriate methodological approach to shed light on several puzzles encountered in the literature. My findings suggest, for example, that electoral structure and voting strength are key components in determining the likelihood of Latino representation, but specific demographic and institutional contexts determine how these matter: Ceteris paribus, ward elections hurt Latino chances of representation, unless there are high levels of segregation within a district. Moreover, I find that the impact of the Latino population is in great part determined by the likelihood that the populace (a) has voting rights (i.e., U.S. citizenship), (b) is not in direct competition with Blacks for elected seats, and (c) resides in an area of the United States with a long history of Latino incorporation. In short, in the race toward representation, Latinos cannot simply tread the same path as their Black counterparts but must forge new roads to victory.

Do Voters Perceive Negative Campaigns as Informative Campaigns?

Sides, J., Lipsitz, K., Grossman, M. — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 01:18:49 PDT

We argue that citizens distinguish the tone of a campaign from the quality of information that it provides and that evaluations on each dimension respond differently to positive and negative political advertising. We test these claims using survey and advertising data from the 2000 presidential campaign and two 1998 gubernatorial races. In each race, citizens separate judgments about the tone of a campaign from judgments about the quality of information they have received. Furthermore, negative campaigning affects the former, but not the latter, set of evaluations. These results have implications for the debate over the impact of negative advertising and for how citizens perceive campaigns as political processes.

Do Candidate Positions Matter? The Effect of the Gay Marriage Question on Gubernatorial Elections

Ensley, M. J., Bucy, E. P. — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:49:55 PDT

This article demonstrates that candidate positions on the ballot measure to ban gay marriage had an effect on gubernatorial voting. With exit poll data from three states in 2006, we find that the effect of support for the ban is at least twice as large when the candidates adopted divergent positions. Support for the ban has a smaller but significant effect on vote choice when the candidate positions converge, which suggests an indiscriminate priming effect. These findings are supported with aggregate data from 45 gubernatorial races in 2004 and 2006. The analysis reveals that Republican candidates benefited if candidate positions diverged, with the Democratic candidates expressing opposition to the gay marriage ban.

Comparing Negative and Positive Campaign Messages: Evidence From Two Field Experiments

Arceneaux, K., Nickerson, D. W. — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 14:49:56 PDT

Considerable research indicates that personal contact from political campaigns can mobilize people to vote, but little attention has been given to whether the tone of the message matters. Studies of message tone have mostly been confined to mass media campaigns and ignored the growing role grassroots techniques play in contemporary political campaigns. Two randomized field experiments were conducted to determine the importance of message tone in grassroots contact. We find evidence that personally delivered messages can be effective at influencing voting preferences, but neither experiment uncovered a systematic difference between the effects of negative and positive messages on voter turnout or political attitudes.

Committee Parallelism and Bicameral Agenda Coordination

Larocca, R. — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 17:05:41 PDT

We examine why a significant proportion of the policy issues passed in either the U.S. House or Senate often fail to pass in the other chamber. We hypothesize that much of this failure of the House and Senate to coordinate their agendas occurs because committee jurisdictions are not parallel across chambers. To compare House and Senate agendas, we develop a comprehensive issue-level data set covering all bills introduced in the 103rd Congress. We estimate a multinomial logit model that reveals that the degree of jurisdictional parallelism across chambers is indeed one of the most important determinants of whether issues that pass in one chamber also pass in the other chamber.