Scholars of congressional elections have argued that an increase in constituent diversity increases the level of electoral competition. Following models of boundedly rational candidates, we argue that there is strong reason to believe that the opposite is true. As the complexity of the electoral landscape increases, challengers will have a more difficult time locating an optimal platform when facing an experienced incumbent. Using data from the 2000 National Annenberg Election Study, we construct a novel measure of district complexity for U.S. House districts and test whether the entry of quality challengers and the incumbent's share of the two-party vote are affected by the complexity of the electoral landscape. We find strong support for the hypothesis that complexity benefits incumbents for both indicators of electoral competition, which stands in contrast to most of the existing literature on diversity and incumbent performance.
“A lot of military battle plans going back to the Civil War say ‘whoever controls the Mississippi controls America.’ And Bush is marching straight up the Mississippi,” the Democratic strategist said. “We’ve just retreated from Louisiana, Arkansas and Missouri. They already control Mississippi, Tennessee and Kentucky. Bush is now moving in on Iowa and Wisconsin. And except for Illinois, which isn’t in play, there’s only one state left: Minnesota, the mouth of the river. And it’s dead even [i.e., a tie] there.” From CNN.com, ALLPOLITICS, September 23, 2004: Mercurio, John and Molly Levinson. “CNN Survey: Bush widens lead in Electoral College.” CNN Political Unit. 27 Sept. 2004 > http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/ 09/23/electoral.map > “All total, 21 states are in play. Some will bounce between “lean [toward a candidate]” to “tossup” throughout the campaign.” USA Today, July 25, 2004: “AP: Bush leads Kerry in electoral votes.” A.P. 25 July 2004, > whttp://www.usatoday.com/news/Politicselections/nation/Presiden t/2004-07-25-bush-kerry-electoral-votes_x.htm > Copyright Springer Science + Business Media, Inc. 2005
Public expenditure, Congress, Ideology, Majority party strength, Party control, Female labor force participation, Stationary versus trending variables, H1, H3, H5, H6,
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