11 5 15 LECTURE 17 Latest on Nomination Contest Nomination process Reps and democrats hold conventions in July to officially nominate their party s candidate for the GE o Delegates selected in each state s primary or caucus attend the convention to elect the Why nominee caucuses But the nominee is generally known well before the conventions actually begin o BC we know how many delegates each candidate has won from the states primaries or o Need a majority of the delegates to win the nomination o State by state process What happens in one state influence next state Because of bandwagon or death spiral effect Candidates who fail to win a substantial amount of delegates in the early states will drop out states hold primaries as opposed to caucuses similar to primaries but allocate delegates through nomination process in consultation with one another Early contests o IA NH NV SC all in Feb o Super tues 11 states hold their contests March Probably when the nominee will be decided Every state wants to hold their primary earlier to have more influence in selecting the nominee o Violates national party rules o Parties impose a penalty on the number of delegates the state can send to the national convention Interpretation 2 Accountability Occurs through Strategic Decision Making Just because Americans lack basic knowledge doesn t mean that electoral accountability doesn t occur Political elites incumbents challengers and campaign contributors act strategically based on expectations of who the winner is going to be By acting on their expectations they produce outcomes that are self fulfilling Incumbents run when they expect to win and retire when they expect to lose High quality challengers contest when they sense the incumbent is vulnerable and run when Donors want to put smart money on the winner and as a consequence will reinforce the seat is open no incumbent running advantages of the front runner Strategic decision making has implications for the quality of alternatives voters are presented with o Incumbents challengers and donors are reacting to expectations Whether their electoral prospects look good or bad Example if incumbent is embroiled in a scandal he ll attract a HQ challenger Donors carefully watch the election don t want to waste money therefore they ll contribute to the expected winner Voters vote for the strongest candidate Voters don t need to have encyclopedic information o Al voters have to do is choose the stronger of the two candidates The choices that voters are presented with are an artifact of expectations Difference between strong and weak challengers Strong potential challengers o Don t want to jeopardize their current office name recognition and money o Strong PCs act strategically Weak potential candidates o Have nothing to lose o Run regardless of whether the incumbent is strong or weak o Want to generate name recognition for the next round Potential Candidates behavior makes congressional elections self fulfilling Incumbents are strong because they face weak potential candidates Incumbent face a weak potential candidates because they are strong Problem is o What came first chicken or the egg o This poses problem for people who want to estimate the effects of HQ challenger entry What sort of races would signal to strong potential candidates that now is a good time to run on vote share High quality challenger incumbent does worse Weak incumbent attract high quality challengers Open seat elections due to o Strategic retirements Races where incumbent is vulnerable due to o War o Redistricting don t know incumbents name or past accomplishments o Adverse economic conditions financial crisis 2008 o Incumbent missteps or scandal o Local political tides o Presidential popularity o First term incumbent Most money is spent on these races Quality of challenger is greater in these races Other 90 is strong incumbent ensured victory Typically only constitute 10 of congressional races Strategic donors Strategic donors o Electoral prospects expectations influence the decisions of campaign contributors o Donors give money to the expected winner Incumbents over challengers o They want to buy access to the winner By giving money to the expected winner campaign donors reinforce the advantages of the incumbents and the disadvantages of the challenger Also poses a problem for those who want to understand the impact of donations on vote share Donor behavior makes congressional elections self fulfilling Republicans o Associations wealthy married like jobs more religious makes people happier Strategic behavior makes outcomes self fulfilling Challengers and donors act upon their expectation of who is going to win In doing so they are manufacturing accountability Voters don t need to follow elections closely The choices voters confront are manufactured by strategic decision making and voters just react to the strongest candidate Strategic Incumbents Incumbents get out of races they expect to lose and run when they expect to win o The incumbent reelection statistic 95 House is inflated Why o B c only strong incumbents run for another term o if all incumbents were forced to run more would lose and the incumbent reelection rate would appear lower poses a problem for those who want to understand the impact of incumbency on vote share Incumbent retires incumbent party s candidate does worse Correlation isn t causation May observe relationships correlation between two variables But this doesn t mean that relationship correlation is casual o There are alternative explanations Relationship may be an artifact of a variable that precedes it 2 Main Points Strategic decision making by challengers incumbents and donors means that voters do not need to pay close attention to politics for there to be electoral accountability BC decisions of incumbents challengers and donors are interrelated it is difficult to estimate their independent effects on electoral outcomes
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