Primary Barriers to Working Class Representation

Abstract

How do working class candidates perform in primary elections? Working class candidates rarely emerge, but existing evidence suggests workers perform as well as white-collar candidates once on the ballot. However, this evidence comes from studies of general elections. It is unknown whether these findings extend to other types of elections like primaries, where candidates compete without the political and financial backing of a party. We collect and analyze novel data describing the occupational background of all candidates who competed in U.S. House primaries between 2008 and 2016. The results show that working class candidates received an average vote share 24 percentage points lower than nonworkers and are 31 percentage points less likely to win their primaries. Controlling for other candidate, contest, and district characteristics helps to attenuate the performance gap. We find mixed evidence that fundraising and prior officeholding experience moderates workers' performance, but weak or no evidence that voter bias, party affiliation, or primary type do so. The study suggests that workers struggle to compete in primaries and calls for further research explaining what prevents workers from winning public office.

Are Workers Effective Lawmakers?

“…Workers' performance in primary versus general elections lend some evidence in support of this expectation. Treul and Hansen (2023) find that workers underperform white-collar candidates in primary elections; however, workers are equally as likely as white-collar candidates to win general elections (Carnes 2018). One explanation for this seemingly inconsistent trend may be that less qualified working-class candidates are weeded out during primary elections, while qualified workers perform equally as well as their whitecollar opponents in general elections.…”

“…Existing scholarship suggests that the type of selection effects candidates face varies across identity groups. 5 Prejudice and discrimination from political elites and gatekeepers-rather than voter bias or perceived bias-is likely the primary obstacle preventing working-class candidates from winning elections (Carnes and Lupu 2016a;Carnes 2018;Griffin, Newman, and Buhr 2020;Hoyt and DeShields 2021;Treul and Hansen 2023). Evidence from survey experiments suggests that voters are not biased against working-class candidates relative to white-collar candidates.…”

“…The primary explanation for why workers are underrepresented in American legislatures is that structural biases exist in American elections that prevent workingclass candidates from emerging and successfully running for elected office (Carnes 2018). While a growing literature examines how and why American elections disproportionately disadvantage candidates from a working-class background (Carnes 2018;Treul and Hansen 2023), it is also necessary to consider how classbased electoral bias is related to workers' ability to effectively govern. The current literature suggests that if workers' numerical representation in legislatures increases, better policy representation for working-class Americans will likely follow (Carnes 2013(Carnes , 2018Mansbridge 1999).…”