Strategic Politicians and the Dynamics of U.S. House Elections, 1946–1986

Jacobson, Gary C.

doi:10.1017/cbo9780511816406.010

Cited by 91 publications

(172 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

162

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…It is included to control for the national-level forces that make a given year better or worse for a given party, and thus affect fund-raising and spending decisions (Jacobson and Kernell, 1983;Jacobson, 1989). Since these forces may be different in different election years, I interact Democrat with dummy variables for each year.…”

Section: Partymentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

War Chests as Precautionary Savings

Goodliffe

2004

Polit Behav

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

I present a model of campaign spending and saving in repeated elections which yields empirical implications on the creation of war chests. As previous studies disagree whether war chests deter potential challengers from running against incumbents, I present an alternative model that intentionally excludes deterrence as a motivation and formalizes under what circumstances (if any) a war chest would be created for savings. The model predicts that an incumbent creates a war chest when she faces a weaker challenger, i.e. as precautionary savings for future elections. The model yields several other predictions of incumbent fund-raising, spending, and saving behavior. Using incumbents from 1982-1998 U.S. House elections, I find strong empirical support for the predictions of the model.

show abstract

Section: Partymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is a potential problem because quality challengers are more likely to run competitively against incumbents (Jacobson 1989). Furthermore, ''competitive elections are desirable because they are the best way to hold elected officials accountable to voters, enhance representation, and build trust in government'' (Herrnson 2004, p. 299).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

War Chests as Precautionary Savings

Goodliffe

2004

Polit Behav

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The literature is filled with results that incumbents' campaign spending either has no effect on outcomes or actually reduces their chances of winning (see, for example, Jacobson 1978Jacobson , 1980Jacobson , 1985Jacobson , 1989Feldman and Jondrow 1984;Ragsdale and Cook 1987;Abramowitz 1988Abramowitz , 1991Grier 1989;Ansolabehere and Gerber 1994;Coates 1998). Other work has suggested that campaign spending is also unproductive for challengers (Levitt 1994).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How prices matter in politics: the returns to campaign advertising

Stratmann

2009

Public Choice

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…access to a high level of resources and/or a high level of political skill (Jacobson 2004(Jacobson , 1989Squire 1992;Banks and Kiewiet 1989). For these scholars, experienced challengers' inherent qualities are the direct cause of their electoral success.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Why Do Experienced Challengers Do Better than Amateurs?

Lazarus

2007

Polit Behav

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Politically experienced challengers are more successful in seeking political office than amateurs. The relationship is found so regularly that political experience has become the standard ex ante indicator of challenger quality in studies of American elections. Despite this, little work has investigated why experienced challengers are so successful. Many scholars attribute the relationship to inherent differences between experienced challengers and amateurs: experienced challengers have stronger electoral skills and greater access to material resources. I argue that these differences play a role, but an indirect one. Rather, experienced challengers are lead by both their resource advantage and the high amount of risk they are exposed to in seeking office to run in races in which their party has a good chance of winning. Thus, the direct cause of the experienced challengers' success is self-selection into winnable races. Empirical analysis supports the self-selection model over a model in which resources directly lead to success.

show abstract

Strategic Politicians and the Dynamics of U.S. House Elections, 1946–1986

Cited by 91 publications

References 0 publications

War Chests as Precautionary Savings

War Chests as Precautionary Savings

How prices matter in politics: the returns to campaign advertising

Why Do Experienced Challengers Do Better than Amateurs?

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About