The electorate, the campaign, and the office : a unified approach to Senate and House elections / Paul Gronke.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gronke, Paul, 1961-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Elections--United States.

Elections.

United States.

United States. Congress--Elections.

United States. Congress.

Campaign funds--United States.

Campaign funds.

Physical Description:

xiv, 202 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, [2000]

Summary:

Voters simultaneously choose among candidates running for different offices that have different terms and occupy different places in the Constitutional order. Conventional wisdom holds that these overlapping institutional differences make comparative electoral research difficult, if not impossible. Paul Gronke's path-breaking study compares electoral contexts, campaigns, and voter decision making in House and Senate elections. Gronke's book offers new insights into how differences -- and similarities -- across offices structure American elections.

Congressional elections research holds that Senate races are more competitive than House contests because states are more heterogeneous than congressional districts, candidates more prominent and able to raise more money, and because voters have fundamentally different expectations. Because these studies are seldom comparative and focus on only one office or one election, we have little empirical evidence to test the various hypotheses about how voters make choices in disparate electoral settings.

Gronke first looks at differences in congressional districts and states, showing that context does not really help us understand why Senate elections feature better candidates, higher spending, and closer outcomes. Next, he turns to campaigns. Surprisingly, over a turbulent twenty-year period, House and Senate candidacies have retained the same competitive dynamics, amidst the Reagan presidency, the 1992 redistricting, and the 1994 Republican revolution.

Gronke also considers House and Senate voting behavior. Focusing on the 1988 and 1990 elections, he argues that voters do not distinguish between institutions, applying fundamentally the samedecision rule, regardless of the office being contested. Gronke closes by considering the implications of his results for the way we relate settings, electoral dynamics, and institutional arrangements.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 185-197) and index.

ISBN:

0472111310

OCLC:

43977590