JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. Comparative Legislative Research Center is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Legislative Studies Quarterly.This study investigates the hypothesis that term limits at the state level increase electoral competition for seats in the U.S. House. With a greater number of ambitious state legislators being unwillingly turned out of office, we can expect that those individuals interested in legislative careers will increasingly turn their attention to Congress.In order to assess whether or not state legislators are more likely to run for Congress in states with legislative term limits, I specified and tested logistic regression models. The models were derived from our prior knowledge of the behavior of strategic politicians and included control variables for theoretically important nationaland district-level factors.The results presented in this study provide support for the hypothesis that state legislators are more likely to run for the House in states with legislative term limits. IntroductionThe decision to run for Congress is a complex one. It is particularly complex for would-be candidates currently serving in other elected positions. Although such "quality" candidates often have the best chances for electoral success relative to their less politically experienced opponents, they also have more to lose because running for Congress usually means they must give up their current positions (Jacobson 1989). The enormous advantage that incumbents enjoy in U.S. House elections renders the risk even greater for quality candidates thinking about opposing an incumbent.Spawned by Jacobson and Kerell (1983), a great deal of research in recent years has explored the strategic calculations made by these quality candidates (Abramowitz 1988; Biersack 1990). While much of this research has been aimed at finetuning the measurement of candidate quality, the primary focus has been on identifying the factors that influence the decision to run for office within broader models of strategic decision making. Understanding the emergence of quality candidates is critical to our knowledge of electoral competition for Congress because of the strong link between candidate quality and the likelihood of winning (Cox and Katz 1996; Jacobson 1990; Robeck 1982).This study examines the candidacy decisions made by a specific type of quality candidate-state legislator-in U.S. House elections between 1994 and 1998. In fact, prior research has suggested that state legislators may be among the most competitive types of quality candidates (Herrnson 1998). They can be formidable candidates for Congress because their state legislative districts often have considerable overlap with U.S. House...

Presidential travel around the nation has become commonplace, yet very little research exists on its impact on public opinion. Although presidents “go public” for a variety of reasons, such as building and maintaining public support, existing research has been limited to examining the effects of going public on national‐level support for the president. In this study, we argue that presidents target state publics (and other sub‐national publics) when they travel around the nation. To test this possible linkage between travel and approval, we utilize data on presidential travel and newly available data on state‐level presidential approval ratings. After controlling for various factors that affect the level of presidential approval at the state level, we find that a presidential visit results in a modest, statistically significant increase in the president's state‐level job approval rating. Our analysis indicates that this effect is present only in non‐election periods and in large states, suggesting that presidents are more likely to stimulate public support when appearing presidential rather than as candidates for office or as partisan leaders.

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