Primaries%20II

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Primaries II
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How 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)

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Question

• Do party organizations in fact try to manipulate
  primary elections?
• Under what circumstances?

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Why would a party organization WANT to manipulate
a primary election?

• To conserve resources
• To ensure a high quality candidate runs

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Thesis

• 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.

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Conventional 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

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Hypotheses
Safe general election Competitive general election
Candidates Want to run
Parties
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Hypotheses
Safe general election Competitive general election
Candidates Want to run
Parties Dont care who gets the nomination
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Hypotheses
Safe general election Competitive general election
Candidates Want to run May not want to run as much
Parties Dont care who gets the nomination
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Hypotheses
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
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What could the party do to influence a primary
election?

• Gerrymander
• Recruit/Discourage
• Express unified support for one candidate
• Endorsements
• Financial contributions

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Observable party elite actors

• National and state party committees
• Loyal partisan donors
• Loyal partisan groups and PACs
• Partisan elected officials
• Local party officials

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Data 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.

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Candidate behavior in each primary type
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Fewer sophisticated candidates run as general
elections become more difficult to win
All between-group differences statistically
significant.
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Open-safe seats produce more hotly contested
primaries
Difference between open-safe and
open-competitive is statistically significant
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Findings Candidate Emergence

• Competitive seat primaries are less hotly
  contested, less divisive of the party, than safe
  seat primaries.

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Hypotheses about Party Elite Behavior
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Parties unify most often in competitive seats
Difference between open-safe and
open-competitive is statistically significant
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When only one strong candidate runs

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When 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.
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When several strong candidates run

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When several strong candidates run
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Does the party unify only around obviously highly
qualified candidates?

• 14 races with low-quality party favorites
• 12 in competitive seats
• 2 in safe seats

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Likelihood of party unifying around one primary
candidate, given the candidate quality score of
the highest qualified candidate in the race
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Results

• 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

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Primary 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
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