Title: Primaries%20II
1Primaries II
2How do primary rules affect candidate behavior?
- Have to win the nomination by appealing to
primary voters who may demand extreme positions
(depending on primary rules) - May make it more difficult to run in a moderate
general election - Have to expend resources to win the nomination
- May make it more difficult to win the general
election (depending on timing, competitiveness of
the primary)
3Question
- Do party organizations in fact try to manipulate
primary elections? - Under what circumstances?
4Why would a party organization WANT to manipulate
a primary election?
- To conserve resources
- To ensure a high quality candidate runs
5Thesis
- Parties should try to manipulate primaries when
the general election is expected to be
competitive, and not bother when the general
election outcome is assured.
6Conventional View of Congressional Nominations
- Driven exclusively by candidate entry decisions
- Strategic, sophisticated candidates think about
- National political conditions
- Incumbency
- District/state partisanship
- Parties have little to offer, and largely stay
out of nomination races
7Hypotheses
Safe general election Competitive general election
Candidates Want to run
Parties
8Hypotheses
Safe general election Competitive general election
Candidates Want to run
Parties Dont care who gets the nomination
9Hypotheses
Safe general election Competitive general election
Candidates Want to run May not want to run as much
Parties Dont care who gets the nomination
10Hypotheses
Safe general election Competitive general election
Candidates Want to run Want to run if they think they can win
Parties Dont care who gets the nomination Care a lot about who gets the nomination
11What could the party do to influence a primary
election?
- Gerrymander
- Recruit/Discourage
- Express unified support for one candidate
- Endorsements
- Financial contributions
12Observable party elite actors
- National and state party committees
- Loyal partisan donors
- Loyal partisan groups and PACs
- Partisan elected officials
- Local party officials
13Data collected on each primary race
- Data collected on each primary race
- Candidate biographies (coded for candidate
quality) - Party-loyal individual donations
- Party-loyal PAC contributions
- National party committee donations
- Elected and party official endorsements
- Party-loyal group endorsements
- Official state party endorsements
- Dependent variable, Party Favorite coded based
on available party support data.
14Candidate behavior in each primary type
15Fewer sophisticated candidates run as general
elections become more difficult to win
All between-group differences statistically
significant.
16Open-safe seats produce more hotly contested
primaries
Difference between open-safe and
open-competitive is statistically significant
17Findings Candidate Emergence
- Competitive seat primaries are less hotly
contested, less divisive of the party, than safe
seat primaries.
18Hypotheses about Party Elite Behavior
19Parties unify most often in competitive seats
Difference between open-safe and
open-competitive is statistically significant
20When only one strong candidate runs
21When only one strong candidate runs
Difference between open-safe and
open-competitive is statistically significant
All open-safe races with unity were in
Republican seats.
22When several strong candidates run
23When several strong candidates run
24Does the party unify only around obviously highly
qualified candidates?
- 14 races with low-quality party favorites
- 12 in competitive seats
- 2 in safe seats
25Likelihood of party unifying around one primary
candidate, given the candidate quality score of
the highest qualified candidate in the race
26Results
- Candidates enter races in response to both
difficulty of winning and party needs - Elites unify most often in competitive races
- Elites unify around both high and low quality
candidates - Elites unify most often around any quality
candidate in races to nominate challengers to
vulnerable incumbents
27Primary Race Race Type Party Unity expected Expected level of Party Unity observed
Texas Senate (R) Open Competitive Yes ?
Texas Senate (D) Open Competitive Yes X
Texas 5th (R) Open Competitive/Lean Republican Yes ?
Texas 5th (D) Open Competitive/Lean Republican Yes ?
Texas 25th (R) Safe No ?
Texas 25th (D) Impossible No ?
Maryland 2nd (R) Open Competitive Yes ?
Maryland 2nd (D) Open Competitive Yes ?
Maryland 8th (R) Vulnerable Incumbent in the primary Yes ?
Maryland 8th (D) Vulnerable Incumbent in the other primary Yes X
28(No Transcript)