District Partisan Safety and Constituent Evaluations of U.S. House Members
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.2010.31.0.279-306Abstract
Disputing the conventional wisdom of congressional scholars, Thomas Brunell has proposed that drafters of congressional district lines should strive to create the maximum number of safe partisan seats. One major reason, to which he devotes considerable attention, is that more votes will be cast for incumbent winners in more homogeneous districts and, because voting for a winning candidate arguably elevates the esteem in which the incumbent is held, district opinion of safer incumbents should therefore be higher. In my own study, I find that district homogeneity, in fact, only modestly improves incumbent positivity. Part of the explanation seems to be that opposition party identifiers, while less abundant in safer districts, have disproportionately critical views of safer members, likely because of these member’s ideological extremity. Moreover, I uncover only mixed evidence supporting Brunellís assertion that the act of voting for a victorious incumbent has an independent effect in raising post-election popularity.References
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