Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dk4vv Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T09:05:04.177Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Do Congressional Candidates Have Reverse Coattails? Evidence from a Regression Discontinuity Design

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2017

David E. Broockman
David E. Broockman*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511. e-mail: david.broockman@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although the presidential coattail effect has been an object of frequent study, the question of whether popular congressional candidates boost vote shares in return for their parties' presidential candidates remains unexplored. This article investigates whether so-called “reverse coattails” exist using a regression discontinuity design with congressional district-level data from presidential elections between 1952 and 2004. Taking incumbency to be near-randomly distributed in cases where congressional candidates have just won or lost their previous elections, I find that the numerous substantial advantages of congressional incumbency have no effect on presidential returns for these incumbents' parties. This null finding underscores my claim that the existing coattail literature deserves greater scrutiny. My results also prompt a rethinking of the nature of the advantages that incumbents bring to their campaigns and may help deepen our understanding of partisanship in the United States.

Type
Research Article
Information
Political Analysis , Volume 17 , Issue 4: Special Issue: Natural Experiments in Political Science , Autumn 2009 , pp. 418 - 434
Copyright
Copyright © The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Political Methodology 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ansolabehere, Stephen, Snyder, James M. Jr., and Charles Stewart, III. 2000. “Old voters, new voters, and the personal vote: Using redistricting to measure the incumbency advantage.” American Journal of Political Science 44: 17–34.Google Scholar
The Democratic Party. 2006. “ASDC Applauds 50 State Strategy.” http://www.democrats.org/a/2006/11/asdc_applauds_5.php (accessed August 3, 2008).Google Scholar
Barabak, Mark Z. 2008. “Howard Dean has long-range vision for the Democrats.” Los Angeles Times. May 1.Google Scholar
Bartels, Larry. 2008. Unequal democracy: The political economy of the new gilded age. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Butler, Daniel M. 2009. “A regression discontinuity analysis of the incumbency advantage and tenure in the U.S. House.” Electoral Studies 28: 123–28.Google Scholar
Butler, Daniel M., and Butler, Matthew J. 2006. “Splitting the difference? Causal inference and theories of split-party delegations.” Political Analysis 14: 439–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Calvert, Randall L., and Ferejohn, John A. 1983. “Coattail voting in recent presidential elections.” American Political Science Review 77: 407–19.Google Scholar
Campbell, James E. 1986. “Predicting seat gains from presidential coattails.” American Journal of Political Science 30: 165–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Campbell, James E., and Sumners, Joe A. 1990. “Presidential coattails in senate elections.” American Political Science Review 84: 513–24.Google Scholar
Carson, Jamie L., Engstrom, Erik J., and Roberts, Jason M. 2007. “Candidate quality, the personal vote, and the incumbency advantage in congress.” American Political Science Review 101: 289–301.Google Scholar
Cohen, Jeffrey E., Bond, Jon R., Fleisher, Richard, and Hamman, John A. 2000. “State-level presidential approval and senatorial support.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 25: 577–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and Katz, Jonathan N. 1996. “Why did the incumbency advantage in US House elections grow?” American Journal of Political Science 40: 478–97.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and Katz, Jonathan N. 2002. “Elbridge Gerry's salamander: The electoral consequences of the reapportionment revolution.” Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cox, Gary W., and Munger, Michael C. 1989. “Closeness, expenditures, and turnout in the 1982 U.S. House elections.” American Political Science Review 83: 217–31.Google Scholar
Engstrom, Erik J., and Monroe, N. W. 2006. “Testing the basis of incumbency advantage: Strategic candidates and term limits in the California legislature.” State Politics & Policy Quarterly 6: 1–20.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S. 1971. “Advantage of incumbency in congressional elections.” Polity 3: 395–405.Google Scholar
Erikson, Robert S., and Palfrey, Thomas R. 1998. “Campaign spending and incumbency: An alternative simultaneous equations approach.” Journal of Politics 60: 355–73.Google Scholar
Fair, Ray C. 1978. “The effect of economic events on votes for President.” The Review of Economics and Statistics 60: 159–73.Google Scholar
Fenno, Richard F. 1978. Home style: House members in their districts. Longman Publishing Group.Google Scholar
Flemming, Gregory N. 1995. “Presidential coattails in open-seat elections.” Legislative Studies Quarterly 20: 197–211.Google Scholar
Gelman, Andrew, and King, Gary. 1990. “Estimating incumbency advantage without bias.” American Journal of Political Science 34: 1142–64.Google Scholar
Gilgoff, Dan. 2006. “Dean's list.” US News and World Report. July 16.Google Scholar
Green, Donald P., and Gerber, Alan S. 2002. “The downstream benefits of experimentation.” Political Analysis 10: 394–402.Google Scholar
Green, Donald P., and Gerber, Alan S. 2008. Get out the vote! How to increase voter turnout. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press.Google Scholar
Hainmueller, Jens, and Kern, Holger Lutz. 2008. “Incumbency as a source of spillover effects in mixed electoral systems: Evidence from a regression-discontinuity design.” Electoral Studies 27: 213–27.Google Scholar
Hogan, Robert E. 2005. “Gubernatorial coattail effects in state legislative elections.” Political Research Quarterly 58: 587–97.Google Scholar
Huber, Gregory A., and Arceneaux, Kevin. 2007. “Identifying the persuasive effects of presidential advertising.” American Journal of Political Science 51: 957–77.Google Scholar
Imbens, Guido W., and Lemieux, Thomas. 2008. “Regression discontinuity designs: A guide to practice.” Journal of Econometrics 142: 615–35.Google Scholar
Kaplowitz, Stan. 1971. “Using aggregate voting data to measure presidential Coat-tail effects.” 35: 415–9Google Scholar
Koch, Jeffrey W. 2008. “Candidate status, presidential approval, and voting for US senators.” Electoral Studies 19(4): 479–92.Google Scholar
Lee, David S. 2008. “Randomized experiments from non-random selection in US House elections.” Journal of Econometrics 142: 675–97.Google Scholar
Mattei, Franco, and Glasgow, Joshua. 2005. “Presidential coattails, incumbency advantage, and open seats: A district-level analysis of the 1976–2000 US House elections.” Electoral Studies 24: 619–41.Google Scholar
Middleton, Joel A., and Green, Donald P. 2008. “Do community-based voter mobilization campaigns work even in battleground states? Evaluating the effectiveness of MoveOn's 2004 Outreach Campaign.” Quarterly Journal of Political Science 3: 63–82.Google Scholar
Miller, Warren. 1955. “Presidential coattails: A study in political myth and methodology.” The Public Opinion Quarterly 19: 15.Google Scholar
Mondak, Jeffrey J., and McCurley, Carl. 1994. “Cognitive efficiency and the congressional vote—The psychology of coattail voting.” Political Research Quarterly 47: 151–75.Google Scholar
Nehring, Ron. 2009. “A Republican 50-state strategy?” Politico. http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0109/17981.html (accessed February 8, 2009).Google Scholar
“Operation reverse coattails.” Time, September 10, 1956. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,808551,00.html (accessed July 14, 2009).Google Scholar
Pettersson-Lidbom, Per. 2008. “Do parties matter for economic outcomes? A regression-discontinuity approach.” Journal of the European Economic Association 6: 1037–56.Google Scholar
Press, Charles. 1958. “Voting statistics and presidential coattails.” American Political Science Review 52: 1041–50.Google Scholar
Prior, Markus. 2006. “The incumbent in the living room: The rise of television and the incumbency advantage in US House elections.” Journal of Politics 68: 657–73.Google Scholar
Rosenberg, Andy. 2008. Obama's reverse coattails. The Huffington Post Blog. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/andy-rosenberg/obamas-reverse-coattails_b_131592.html (accessed December 23, 2008).Google Scholar
Rosenstone, Steven J., and Hansen, John M. 1993. Mobilization, Participation, and Democracy in America. New York: Macmillan Publishing Company.Google Scholar