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      Candidates and Policy in United States Senate Elections

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      American Political Science Review
      JSTOR

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          Abstract

          This analysis demonstrates that policy issues play an important role in the selection of members of Congress. We differ with the conclusion of much of the existing research on congressional elections, which indicates that policy considerations are of minor importance. We have conducted an analysis of the 1982 U.S. Senate elections, drawing on data from the CBS News/New York Times1982 congressional poll and from 23 statewide exit polls. We demonstrate that (1) candidates behave as though they believe issues are important to voters; (2) candidates' policy positions systematically influence voters' decisions; and (3) candidates' issue positions and voters' evaluations of the president and the economy interact to provide clear patterns of policy effects on Senate election outcomes. Policy effects are substantial and systematic in Senate elections, and cannot be omitted if we are to appreciate the importance of congressional elections in the national policy-making process.

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          Most cited references35

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          In Defense of Multiplicative Terms in Multiple Regression Equations

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            Short-Term Fluctuations in U.S. Voting Behavior, 1896–1964

            This paper develops several simple multivariate statistical models and applies them to explain fluctuations in the aggregate vote for the United States House of Representatives, over the period 1896-1964. The basic hypothesis underlying these models is that voters are rational in at least the limited sense that their decisions as to whether to vote for an incumbent administration depend on whether its performance has been “satisfactory” according to some simple standard. Because of data limitations, the analysis focuses on measures of economic performance, treating other aspects of an incumbent's performance, such as its handling of foreign affairs, as stochastic perturbations of the underlying relationship to be estimated. (Examination of residuals suggests this assumption is not unreasonable, at least during peacetime.) Possible effects of coattails from presidential races, of incumbency, and of secular trends in the underlying partisanship of the electorate are also taken into account. The models, estimated by maximum-likelihood methods, are found to be successful. Close to two-thirds of the variance in the vote series is accounted for, and the structural coefficients of the models are of the correct signs and of quite reasonable magnitudes. Economic growth, as measured by the changes in real per capita income, is the major economic variable; unemployment or inflation have little independent effect. Presidential coattails are also found to be of some importance.
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              Self-Interest vs. Symbolic Politics in Policy Attitudes and Presidential Voting

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                applab
                American Political Science Review
                Am Polit Sci Rev
                JSTOR
                0003-0554
                1537-5943
                June 1986
                August 2014
                : 80
                : 02
                : 567-588
                Article
                10.2307/1958274
                7c615c5f-880f-4896-804b-3e9455f9a169
                © 1986
                History

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