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Beyond Partisanship: Outperforming The Party Label With Local Roots In Congressional Elections, Charles R. Hunt
Beyond Partisanship: Outperforming The Party Label With Local Roots In Congressional Elections, Charles R. Hunt
Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations
While factors like partisanship are increasingly decisive in congressional elections, they do not fully explain variation in constituency support between similarly situated incumbents. I argue that legislators’ reelection success is also influenced by the depth of their local, pre-Congress roots in the district they represent. I theorize that this local connection offers practical advantages to incumbents, such as built-in grassroots political infrastructure in their districts. Shared local identity also allows legislators to relate to their voters on a dimension that is uniquely suited to cross-cut partisanship and qualify them to represent their particular constituents. Therefore, I argue that local roots …
Grand Old (Tailgate) Party?: Partisan Discrimination In Apolitical Settings, Andrew M. Engelhardt, Stephen M. Utych
Grand Old (Tailgate) Party?: Partisan Discrimination In Apolitical Settings, Andrew M. Engelhardt, Stephen M. Utych
Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations
Recent work in political science demonstrates that the American public is strongly divided on partisan lines. Levels of affective polarization are so great, it seems, that partisanship even shapes behavior in apolitical settings. However, this literature does not account for other salient identity dimensions on which people make decisions in apolitical settings, potentially stacking the deck in favor of partisanship. We address this limitation with a pair of experiments studying price discrimination among college football fans. We find that partisan discrimination exists, even when the decision context explicitly calls attention to another social identity. But, importantly, this appears to function …
Man Bites Blue Dog: Are Moderates Really More Electable Than Ideologues?, Stephen M. Utych
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.
Electoral Cycle Fluctuations In Partisanship: Global Evidence From Eighty-Six Countries, Kristin Michelitch, Stephen Utych
Electoral Cycle Fluctuations In Partisanship: Global Evidence From Eighty-Six Countries, Kristin Michelitch, Stephen Utych
Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations
Elections are defining elements of democracy but occur infrequently. Given that elections evoke mass mobilization, we expect citizen attachments to political parties to wax during election season and wane in between. By leveraging data from 86 countries across the globe to investigate the effect of the electoral cycle on partisanship, we find that the predicted probability of being close to a political party rises 6 percentage points from cycle midpoint to an election—an effect rivaling traditional key determinants of partisanship. Further, fluctuations are larger where the persistence of party presence throughout the cycle is weaker and socioeconomic development is lower. …
What Happens When Social Pressures Collide? The Role Of Environmental Pressures Throughout Life, Jeffrey Lyons
What Happens When Social Pressures Collide? The Role Of Environmental Pressures Throughout Life, Jeffrey Lyons
Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations
How do competing social influences shape individual partisanship over the course of the life cycle? People enter and exit a host of environments over the course of the lifespan, and these environments provide social pressures that can conflict or reinforce early socialized attitudes. Socialization could be an agent for either opinion change, or opinion stability. Using the Youth-Parent Socialization Study and constructing partisan environmental measures at the county-level, I explore this question. The findings demonstrate that environments exert significant socializing influence over the lifespan, moderating the persistence of early forces. This helps to reconcile two competing perspectives on the enduring …