Home field advantage : roots, reelection, and representation in the modern Congress / Charles Hunt

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Hunt, Charles, author.

Series:

Legislative politics & policy making.

Legislative politics and policy making

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

United States. Congress--Elections.

United States.

United States. Congress--Constituent communication.

Representative government and representation--United States.

Representative government and representation.

Elections--United States.

Elections.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (285 pages)

Place of Publication:

Ann Arbor, Michigan : University of Michigan Press, 2022.

Summary:

Although partisan polarization gets much of the attention in political science scholarship about Congress, members of Congress represent diverse communities around the country. Home Field Advantage demonstrates the importance of this understudied element of American congressional elections and representation in the modern era: the local, place-based roots that members of Congress have in their home districts. Charles Hunt argues that legislators' local roots in their district have a significant and independent impact on their campaigns, election outcomes, and more broadly on the relationship between members of the U.S. House of Representatives and their constituents. Drawing on original data, his research reveals that there is considerable variation in election outcomes, performance relative to presidential candidates, campaign spending, and constituent communication styles that are not fully explained by partisanship, incumbency, or other well-established theories of American political representation. Rather, many of these differences are the result of the depth of a legislator's local roots in their district that predate their time in Congress. Hunt lays out a detailed "Theory of Local Roots" and their influence in congressional representation, demonstrating this influence empirically using multiple original measures of local roots over a full cross-section of legislators and a significant period of time.

Contents:

Intro

Contents

List of Illustrations

List of Tables

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Introduction

Chapter 2. Sharing Space: Local Roots and the Representational Relationship

Chapter 3. Rediscovering Roots: New Empirical Perspectives on Local Backgrounds

Chapter 4. Beyond Partisanship: Outperforming the Party Label with Shared Local Identity

Chapter 5. Cultivating the Grassroots: Expanding Electoral Support across Constituencies

Chapter 6. Power of the Personal: Local Roots and Campaign Spending

Chapter 7. The Talk of the Town: Local and Partisan Communication Styles

Chapter 8. Is All Politics Still Local? Local Roots in Historical Perspective

Chapter 9. Shifting Boundaries: Political Geography, Redistricting, and Local Roots

Chapter 10. What's Next? Concluding Thoughts and Directions in the Study of Local Roots

Appendixes

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Notes

References

Index.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 249-263) and index.

Description based on information from the publisher.

Other Format:

Print version: Hunt, Charles R. Home Field Advantage

ISBN:

9780472220427