Angels, Pinpoints, and Voters: The Pattern for a Coattail

Moreland, William B.

doi:10.2307/2110480

Cited by 4 publications

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“…The second major category of presidential coattail studies consists of those based on survey data (Miller, 1955(Miller, -1956Campbell and Miller, 1957;Moreland, 1973). These studies have focused on the question of voter motivations.…”

Section: Previous Coattail Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Presidential Coattails on Outcomes of Congressional Elections

Edwards

1979

American Politics Quarterly

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Presidential coattails are frequently addressed in American politics, but we know little about their impact on the outcomes in elections for the House. Yet it is here that they are most significant. If presidential coattails do affect congressional elections, they can be the cause of increased support for the president (from new representatives of his party) and increased support for policy change (from representatives of a new generation). This research examines the relationship between how well a president runs in a congressional district and the success of the congressional candidate of his party in winning the district. The analysis is done for each of the six presidential elections from 1952 through 1972, and is done separately for the North and South as well as for the country as a whole. In every instance, constituency party strength is controlled in order to isolate the impact of the presidential candidate on the congressional outcome. The basic conclusions are that presidential coattails have had a declining impact on the outcomes in congressional elections since 1952 and that in recent elections their impact has declined to the vanishing point. This, it is argued, is primarily due to the increasing lack of competitiveness of congressional districts.Presidential coattails are part of the lore of American electoral behavior. Politicians project them, journalists attribute them, historians recount them, and political scientists analyze them. Yet their extent and consequences remain elusive. This research attempts to cast light on these questions. PREVIOUS COATTAIL STUDIESThere have been two basic types of studies of presidential coattails. The first type has relied upon aggregate voting data and has compared the results in congressional districts for presidential and congressional candidates of the same party to discover the extent to which one ran ahead of the other (Press, 1958); whether both won, lost, or split the district (Cummings,

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Section: Previous Coattail Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Impact of Presidential Coattails on Outcomes of Congressional Elections

Edwards

1979

American Politics Quarterly

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Determinants of coattail voting

Mondak

1990

Polit Behav

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Coattail Voting in Recent Presidential Elections

Calvert¹,

Ferejohn

1983

Am Polit Sci Rev

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This article presents a method for analyzing the extent and strength of coattail voting in presidential elections. This method allows the authors to estimate the magnitude of coattail voting and then to decompose this estimate into more “basic” elements. Estimates are given for presidential elections beginning with 1956.The determination of the coattail vote and its decomposition depend on the theory of the voting decision that is assumed. In this article we present a model of vote determination that is similar in most respects to the traditional SRC model; the vote for congressional representation in a presidential election year is determined jointly by partisan affiliation, attitudes toward the presidential candidates, and local forces unique to the congressional race (such as may be captured by an incumbency variable). This model permits the separate estimation of the strength of short-term forces and of the efficiency of the presidential coattails.Application of the model to survey data since 1956 indicates that efficiency of presidential coattails has declined during this period. Furthermore, the 1980 election does not appear to be an exception to this trend. On the other hand there has not been any particular trend in the strength of short-term forces during this period; instead events peculiar to the context of a specific election generate short-term forces at the level of the presidential election, but the degree to which these forces are carried over to local races seems to have declined.

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Angels, Pinpoints, and Voters: The Pattern for a Coattail

Cited by 4 publications

References 0 publications

The Impact of Presidential Coattails on Outcomes of Congressional Elections

The Impact of Presidential Coattails on Outcomes of Congressional Elections

Determinants of coattail voting

Coattail Voting in Recent Presidential Elections

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