Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Part I Election Patterns and INTERPRETIVE Frameworks
- 1 Disconnecting and Reconnecting Presidential–House Election Results
- 2 The Study of Presidential–House Elections
- 3 Reconsidering Conclusions
- 4 Explaining Change
- Part II Explaining a Changing Relationship
- Appendix I Presidential–House Elections by House Districts
- Appendix II The Presidential–House Relationship and Uncontested Races
- Appendix III Alternative Explanations of Change
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
1 - Disconnecting and Reconnecting Presidential–House Election Results
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2013
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Part I Election Patterns and INTERPRETIVE Frameworks
- 1 Disconnecting and Reconnecting Presidential–House Election Results
- 2 The Study of Presidential–House Elections
- 3 Reconsidering Conclusions
- 4 Explaining Change
- Part II Explaining a Changing Relationship
- Appendix I Presidential–House Elections by House Districts
- Appendix II The Presidential–House Relationship and Uncontested Races
- Appendix III Alternative Explanations of Change
- Bibliography
- Index
- References
Summary
In the early 1900s presidential and House election results were highly correlated. When a Republican presidential candidate did well within a district, the Republican House candidate also did well. When a presidential candidate did poorly, the House candidate of the same party also did poorly. There was a consistency of partisan electoral expressions across House districts. The result was that a president generally came into office with his party holding a majority in the House. The presumption was that the electorate was reacting primarily to parties. Divided partisan control of institutions was not the norm. If the electorate shifted significantly toward one party, it carried that party to power in the presidency and the House.
That connection persisted even when the critical realignment of 1932 occurred. That election is viewed as one that fundamentally changed electoral alignments; however, the major change involved relatively uniform movements to the Democrats in districts where the party had been weak. A shift toward Democrat Franklin Roosevelt for president was accompanied by a shift toward the Democratic House candidate, regardless if it was an incumbent or a candidate for an open seat. The shift in voter sentiment in the presidential race also occurred in House elections, and the association between the two sets of results remained high. For the first half of the century the correlation between presidential and House election results was consistently .8 or higher. The percentage of House districts with split-outcomes (different parties winning the presidential and House vote within a district) rarely reached 20 percent.
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- Information
- Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012
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