Agenda Setting in Congressional Elections: The Impact of Issues and Campaigns on Voting Behavior

Abbe, Owen G.; Goodliffe, Jay; Herrnson, Paul S.; Patterson, Kelly D.

doi:10.2307/3219803

Cited by 26 publications

(38 citation statements)

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“…Petrocik's (1996) research on issue ownership demonstrates that when voters focus on issues that favor a presidential candidate's party they are more likely to vote for the party's candidate. Abbe et al (2003) report similar results when they test Petrocik's issue ownership theory on congressional voting. Nevertheless, the degree to which policy issues can be used to encourage voters to defect from their partisan moorings when voting in congressional elections remains an unanswered question.…”

mentioning

confidence: 56%

“…Generally, candidates benefit the most if the focus of the campaign agenda is on issues that are owned by their own party (Abbe et al 2003;Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1994;Carsey 2001;Holian 2006;Rabinowitz and MacDonald 1989;Petrocik 1996). However, some candidates may campaign on issues owned by the opposing party (Aldrich and Griffin 2003;Damore 2004;Holian 2004).…”

Section: Partisan Defection Issue Salience and Issue Ownershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Issue Voting and Partisan Defections in Congressional Elections

Herrnson

Curry

2011

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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In every election cycle the fate of some candidates is determined by partisans who defect from their usual voting habits to cast a ballot for the candidate of the opposing party. Defections in congressional elections have been attributed to incumbency, presidential approval, partisan strength, and factors related to individual voters. Our systematic assessment of the impact of issues on voter defections shows that party‐owned issues and performance issues associated favorably with one party affect the likelihood of partisan defections. The results suggest that congressional candidates can use issues to draw supporters away from the opposing party and to keep partisan voters loyal.

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mentioning

confidence: 56%

Section: Partisan Defection Issue Salience and Issue Ownershipmentioning

confidence: 99%

Issue Voting and Partisan Defections in Congressional Elections

Herrnson

Curry

2011

Legislative Studies Qtrly

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“…Petrocik (1996) introduces the view that the competence of a politician in a particular field ('issue ownership') is relevant for his success. Abbe et al (2003) model how politicians' success depends on whether their core competencies are 'high on the agenda'. Our setup is inspired by these concepts; we model the agenda setting process by issues' true relevance for the voters and the competency of the candidates by the precision of their information.…”

Section: Last Minute Policies and Incumbencymentioning

confidence: 99%

Last Minute Policies and the Incumbency Advantage

Manzoni

Penczynski

2018

German Economic Review

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This paper models a purely informational mechanism behind the incumbency advantage. In a two-period electoral campaign with two policy issues, a specialized incumbent and an unspecialized, but possibly more competent challenger compete for election by voters who are heterogeneously informed about the state of the world. Due to the asymmetries in government responsibility between candidates, the incumbent's statement may convey information on the relevance of the issues to voters. In equilibrium, the incumbent sometimes strategically releases his statement early and thus signals the importance of his signature issue to the voters. We find that, since the incumbent's positioning on the issue reveals private information which the challenger can use in later statements, the incumbent's incentives to distort the campaign are decreasing in his quality, as previously documented by the empirical literature. The distortions arising in equilibrium are decreasing in the incumbent's effective ability; however, the distortions may be increasing in the incumbent's reputation of expertise on his signature issue.

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“…While the issue-ownership literature has most commonly been focused at the presidential level, the theory has also been applied to congressional campaigns (Spiliotes and Vavreck 2002;Abbe et al 2003;Sulkin and Evans 2006;Sulkin et al 2007;Dulio and Trumbore 2009). This prior research has produced findings largely consistent with the scholarship at the presidential level.…”

Section: Who Talks About What? Issue Ownership and Agenda Settingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Informed by the literatures on issue ownership and agenda setting in both presidential (Petrocik 1996;Petrocki, Benoit and Hansen 2003;-4;Damore 2004) and congressional (Spiliotes and Vavreck 2002;Abbe, Goodliffe, Herrnson and Patterson 2003;Sulkin and Evans 2006;Sulkin, Moriarty and Hefner 2007;Sides 2007) campaigning, we analyze the issue content of television advertisements produced by roughly 200 candidates for seats in the US House of Representatives during the election cycles identified above to determine the extent to which foreign policy issues played a role in their appeals to potential voters.…”

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confidence: 99%

Running on Foreign Policy? Examining the Role of Foreign Policy Issues in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 Congressional Campaigns

Trumbore

Dulio

2012

Foreign Policy Anal

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While there is a long, rich tradition of scholarship on the impact of foreign policy on presidential campaigns and elections, the question of the role of foreign policy concerns in congressional elections has been left largely unexplored. This is particularly surprising given that scholars have in recent years highlighted the significant impact of Congress on American foreign policy both as an institution and as the result of the foreign policy activism of individual members. This earlier research indicates that the role of foreign policy in congressional campaigns and elections deserves much more attention than it has so far received. In this project, we examine the use of foreign policy in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 congressional campaigns, analyzing the issue content of television advertisements produced by candidates seeking election to the US House of Representatives. We find that across the three election cycles, foreign policy issues became much more prominent over time but still remained a modest part of candidates' appeals to potential voters. We also find differences between candidates rooted in partisan identification and perceptions of policy performance on key foreign policy issues, and strong indications that candidates emphasize foreign policy issues that have significant local impact.

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Agenda Setting in Congressional Elections: The Impact of Issues and Campaigns on Voting Behavior

Cited by 26 publications

References 0 publications

Issue Voting and Partisan Defections in Congressional Elections

Issue Voting and Partisan Defections in Congressional Elections

Last Minute Policies and the Incumbency Advantage

Running on Foreign Policy? Examining the Role of Foreign Policy Issues in the 2000, 2002, and 2004 Congressional Campaigns

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