Divisive Presidential Primaries and Party Electoral Prospects, 1932-1976

Lengle, James I.

doi:10.1177/1532673x8000800301

Cited by 43 publications

(33 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…Yet these weaknesses contributed to her decisive general election defeat, losing by a whopping 16 points in a year the Democratic majority picked up 21 House seats. In sum, supporters of losing primary candidates are less likely to make campaign donations, less likely to volunteer, less likely to vote, and might even vote for opposition candidates in the general election (Lengle, 1980). Advances in the understanding of how the public forms its opinions also speak to the potentially destructive nature of divisive primaries (Zaller, 1992;Zaller & Feldman, 1992).…”

Section: Divisive Primaries: Sore Losers Versus Electoral Prospectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divisive Primaries and Incumbent General Election Performance: Prospects and Costs in U.S. House Races

Johnson

Petersheim

Wasson

2010

American Politics Research

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Do divisive primaries hurt incumbents? If so, does the electoral calendar condition their effects? Potential challengers are predatory and estimate their electoral chances before running against an incumbent, meaning electoral prospects influence both primary divisiveness and general election performance. However, divisive primaries may waste precious campaign resources and damage the primary winner's reputation. The evidence suggests that although divisive primaries generally hurt incumbents and help challengers as electoral prospects theory predicts, these effects wane and eventually disappear the closer the primary is to the general election.

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Section: Divisive Primaries: Sore Losers Versus Electoral Prospectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Divisive Primaries and Incumbent General Election Performance: Prospects and Costs in U.S. House Races

Johnson

Petersheim

Wasson

2010

American Politics Research

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“…For instance, these rules may foster hard fought multi-candidate campaigns, which could divide the party so seriously that the fall election would be nearly impossible to win.21 Thus, while the parties may be getting a better indicator of a candidate's popularity, these reforms could have exactly the opposite effect from the one intended. There is a growing literature assessing whether divisive primaries hinder a party's chance for victory in the general election (see Pierson and Smith, 1975;Bernstein, 1977;Lengle, 1980;Born, 1981;Kenney andRice, 1984, 1985;and Westlye, 1985).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rules Governing Presidential Primaries

Geer¹

1986

The Journal of Politics

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Many observers of American politics have been highly critical of the proliferation of primaries that occurred in the 1970s. One of the reasons given for this unfavorable assessment is that the direct primary cannot consistently yield candidates who have broad electoral support-something that is thought necessary to win general elections. And since the major goal of parties is to win elections, this perceived shortcoming is cause for concern.In this article I show, however, that the problem lies not with the direct primary itself, but rather with the rules that govern presidential primaries. In fact, if parties would allocate delegates proportionally to candidates, adopt a preference ballot, and allow independents and "swing" voters to participate, the direct primary would offer an excellent opportunty to nominate candidates with broad support.O ne of the fundamental tenets of American politics is that political parties strive to win elections. From M. Ostrogorski's (1902) investigation of how American parties actually work to Anthony Down's (1957) analysis of how parties ought to behave, this belief has served as the anchor of much of the best discussion of party politics that we have. Yet many scholars claim that the replacement of a politician-dominated system of presidential nominations with one dominated by rank-and-file voters has weakened the capacity of the national parties to nominate candidates with broad electoral support-something that is generally thought necessary to win general elections. Perhaps for this reason, many of the most prominent scholars of political parties have been skeptical, if not openly hostile, to the new system of nominations, viewing them as antithetical to the fundamental purposes of parties (Ceasar, 1979(Ceasar, , 1982Polsby, 1983;Ranney, 1975).Few can doubt that direct primaries remove power from party professionals and give it to voters. But it does not follow that primaries prevent parties from nominating candidates that increase the party's chance for success in November. My aim in this paper is to argue that For thoughtful comments and assistance I would like to thank James D. DeNardo, Stanley Kelley, Jr., Thomas R. Rochon, and the anonymous referees of this journal. A special note of thanks goes to John Zaller, whose help was invaluable in the completion of this study. As always, I bear sole responsibility for the analyses and interpretations presented here.

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“…In aggregate analyses states with divisive primaries lend less support to the party's candidate in the fall election (Kenney and Rice 1987;Lengle 1980;Lengle, Owen, and Sonner 1995). However, more care is needed in accounting for preexisting divisiveness in state party electorates which could cause both divisive primaries and fall defections.…”

Section: Connectionsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Presidential Nomination Politics in the Post-Reform Era

Norrander

1996

Political Research Quarterly

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Since 1980, more than 175 scholarly articles, chapters, or books have been published about the post-reform presidential nomination system. Numer ous authors investigate primary rules, media coverage, candidates, voters, or momentum. Less well covered are the subjects of interest groups, win nowing of candidates, campaign contributors, and connections to other phases of the presidency Research on presidential nominations has to con tend with an ever-changing environment as rules change, candidates exit the contests, and the primary season progresses from February through June. This environmental complexity adds to the challenge of investigating the first phase of the presidential selection process. Coupling this environ mental complexity with a lack of consensus among scholars on measure ment, model building, and theory leads to contradictory findings in a number of areas. Nevertheless, much has been learned about the patterns of presidential nominations.

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Divisive Presidential Primaries and Party Electoral Prospects, 1932-1976

Cited by 43 publications

References 3 publications

Divisive Primaries and Incumbent General Election Performance: Prospects and Costs in U.S. House Races

Divisive Primaries and Incumbent General Election Performance: Prospects and Costs in U.S. House Races

Rules Governing Presidential Primaries

Presidential Nomination Politics in the Post-Reform Era

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