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Political Science

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Elections

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Vive La Différence?: Is There A Gender Gap In Campaign Strategy And Spending, And Does It Matter?, Paul S. Herrnson, Charles Hunt, Jaclyn J. Kettler Oct 2023

Vive La Différence?: Is There A Gender Gap In Campaign Strategy And Spending, And Does It Matter?, Paul S. Herrnson, Charles Hunt, Jaclyn J. Kettler

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Record numbers of women were elected into office in the US in recent years, and campaign financing may have contributed to their successes. This raises two questions: Is there a gender gap in campaign strategy and spending? And if there is, does it have an impact on election outcomes? Using a new dataset that includes itemized campaign expenditures for the almost 3,500 candidates who contested a House election between 2012 and 2020, we report little evidence of a gender gap in candidates’ campaign spending, but we find some differences in the effects of communications spending on women’s and men’s electoral …


Local Candidate Roots And Electoral Advantages In Us State Legislatures, Charles Russell Hunt, Stella Rouse Jun 2023

Local Candidate Roots And Electoral Advantages In Us State Legislatures, Charles Russell Hunt, Stella Rouse

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

A growing literature has revealed a notable electoral advantage for congressional and gubernatorial candidates with deep local roots in their home districts or states. However, there is a dearth of research on the presence and impact of local roots in state legislative races. In this paper, we close that gap by demonstrating the consistent and significant electoral impacts that state legislators’ local roots have on their reelection efforts. We use data capturing a representative cross-section of state legislative incumbents (N = ~5,000) and calculate a novel index measuring the depth of their local roots modeled after Hunt’s (2022, Home …


The Effect Of Partisan Representation At Different Levels Of Government On Satisfaction With Democracy In The United States, Julie Vandusky-Allen, Stephen M. Utych Dec 2021

The Effect Of Partisan Representation At Different Levels Of Government On Satisfaction With Democracy In The United States, Julie Vandusky-Allen, Stephen M. Utych

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper, we analyze how variations in partisan representation across different levels of government influence Americans’ satisfaction with the democracy in the United States. We conduct two survey experiments and analyze data from the 2016 American National Election Study postelection survey. We find that Americans are the most satisfied with democracy when their most preferred party controls both the federal and their respective state governments. However, we also find that even if an individual’s least preferred party only controls one level of government, they are still more satisfied with democracy than if their most preferred party controls no levels …


Cooperatives And The Question Of Democracy, Mark J. Kaswan Jan 2021

Cooperatives And The Question Of Democracy, Mark J. Kaswan

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Democracy is generally considered to be a core element of cooperatives. However, other than elected boards of directors, it appears to play little part in either the governance or operations of most cooperatives. Two challenges to democracy are identified. One is the idea that cooperatives will tend to lose their democratic character over time. The other is that many cooperatives are founded primarily for economic reasons, and democracy is a second-order concern. The paper explores the question of how important democracy is to cooperatives, identifying warning signs and encouraging cooperatives to take a more active approach to promote participation. Democracy …


Man Bites Blue Dog: Are Moderates Really More Electable Than Ideologues?, Stephen M. Utych Jan 2020

Man Bites Blue Dog: Are Moderates Really More Electable Than Ideologues?, Stephen M. Utych

Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Are ideologically moderate candidates more electable than ideologically extreme candidates? Historically, both research in political science and conventional wisdom answer yes to this question. However, given the rise of ideologues on both the right and the left in recent years, it is important to consider whether this assumption is still accurate. I find that, while moderates have historically enjoyed an advantage over ideologically extreme candidates in congressional elections, this gap has disappeared in recent years, where moderates and ideologically extreme candidates are equally likely to be elected. This change persists for both Democratic and Republican candidates.