Edited by Jonathan KatzMultilevel regression and poststratification (MRP) is a method to estimate public opinion across geographic units from individual-level survey data. If it works with samples the size of typical national surveys, then MRP offers the possibility of analyzing many political phenomena previously believed to be outside the bounds of systematic empirical inquiry. Initial investigations of its performance with conventional national samples produce generally optimistic assessments. This article examines a larger number of cases and a greater range of opinions than in previous studies and finds substantial variation in MRP performance. Through empirical and Monte Carlo analyses, we develop an explanation for this variation. The findings suggest that the conditions necessary for MRP to perform well will not always be met. Thus, we draw a less optimistic conclusion than previous studies do regarding the use of MRP with samples of the size found in typical national surveys.

We reexamine voting choice in congressional elections by using panels of district experts to identify the ideological positions and leadership qualities of candidates running in a national sample of districts. We show that: (1) candidate-quality differences affect voting choice; (2) that the effect of candidate quality increases with reduced differences between candidates on ideology; and (3) that the effect of issues on voting depends on candidate differences in quality and ideology. The conditional nature of these effects has consequences for candidate position taking that challenge conventional wisdom because candidates with a quality advantage have an incentive to moderate while candidates who are at a quality disadvantage do not. Analyses that do not include competitors' differences on both ideology and quality are incomplete because the effects of moderation depend on the position of the opponent and which candidate has the quality advantage.

Social scientists have increasingly turned to expert judgments to generate data for difficult-to-measure concepts, but getting access to and response from highly expert informants can be costly and challenging. We examine how informant selection and post-survey response aggregation influence the validity and reliability of measures built from informant observations. We draw upon three surveys with parallel survey questions of candidate characteristics to examine the trade-off between expanding the size of the local informant pool and the pool's level of expertise. We find that a “wisdom-of-crowds” effect trumps the benefits associated with the expertise of individual informants when the size of the rater pool is modestly increased. We demonstrate that the benefits of expertise are best realized by prescreening potential informants for expertise rather than post-survey weighting by expertise.

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This article analyzes the relationship between U.S. senators and their constituencies over the entire period of time that senators have been selected by direct election. Focusing on preference change within states, we identify three mechanisms that might produce responsiveness in senators' ideological locations. We find that it is not merely the case that responsiveness is produced by party representation. Replacement of one senator with another of the same party facilitates responsiveness, too. And, even without electoral replacement, individual senators appear to adjust their ideological locations in response to changes in their electorates' preferences. We also investigate how the mechanisms of responsiveness changed with the erosion of Democratic dominance in the South and as the parties grew stronger over time.Over the past 100 years, the partisan and ideological complexions of many state electorates have changed considerably. This is true of all the former Confederate states along with many states outside the South, including Utah,

Political behavior is a function of individual characteristics, the political and social contexts in which they are embedded, and interactions between context and individual variables. The studies and hypotheses organized on one dimension by two types of citizen response are addressed, these are: engagement and choice. The article also defines the strategic decisions of candidates and others who define the political context. The two aspects of this dimension are candidate investment and differentials. It is imperative to take full account of how competition between leaders stimulates citizen response. The study of how citizens react to the context facing them must also include theory and evidence about how that context gets defined. Formal theoretical work on candidate strategic choices, especially with respect to position-taking on the issues, has advanced, but research on many of the other choices that shape the political context is less developed.

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