Strategic Candidate Entry in U.S. House Partisan Primaries

Crashing  the  Party:  Strategic  Candidate  Entry  in  Par3san  Primaries  for  the  U.S.  House ABSTRACT   THEORY Strategic  entry  theory  suggests  that  experienced  candidates,  those  holding   prior  poliAcal  office,  will  wait  for  the  most  opportune  chance  to  seek  higher   office.    When  they  do  so,  they  will  leverage  their  name  recogniAon,   connecAons,  skills,  and  resources  to  maximize  their  chances  of  victory.     Most  previous  studies  of  strategic  entry  focus  on  cross-­‐party  challenges  to   incumbents,  rather  than  intra-­‐party  primary  contests.  Previous  findings   suggest  that  four  factors  may  predict  a  potenAal  experienced  primary   challenge:  H1)  an  ideologically  moderate  incumbent,  H2)  low  incumbent   margin  of  victory,  H3)  high  levels  of  district  parAsanship,  and  H4)  other   indicators  of  incumbent  weakness,  such  as  a  high  unemployment  rate.    I   analyze  how  these  factors  contribute  to  strategic  candidate  entry.   METHODS   I  collected  data  on  all  2014  congressional  primary  candidates,  excluding   those  from  states  using  nonparAsan  or  “jungle”  primaries  or  nominaAng   convenAons.    InformaAon,  including  data  on  candidate  fundraising,   demographics,  vote  share,  and  experience,  was  obtained  from  the   Federal  ElecAon  Commission,  Secretary  of  States’  websites,  and  a   comprehensive  survey  of  candidate  sites  and  newspaper  reports.    Using   a  dichotomous  variable  coded  “1”  for  all  candidates  with  prior  elected   or  significant  appointed  office,  and  “0”  for  all  others,  data  was  analyzed   using  logit  regressions.  I  supplemented  this  informaAon  with  data  on  all   congressional  districts  and  incumbents  in  my  sample.    Using  the  Census   Bureau  and  Secretary  of  States’  websites,  basic  demographic  and   economic  informaAon  for  each  district  was  obtained,  as  well  as  previous   vote  totals.    Using  the  Cook  PoliAcal  Report  and  DW-­‐NOMINATE  scores,   I  constructed  a  transformed  scale  measuring  district  parAsanship  and   incumbent  ideological  extremism.     • Figure  1  displays  the  number  of  candidates  in  each  type  of  primary:  those  seeking  open  seats,  “challengers”,  those  seeking  the  nominaAon  to  challenge  an incumbent  of  the  opposite  party,  and  “coparAsans”,  seeking  the  nominaAon  against  an  incumbent  within  their  party  and  further  divided  by  experience. • Figure  2  breaks  down  the  experienced  candidates  in  figure  1  by  party  affiliaAon.   • Figure  3  describes  predicted  probabiliAes  of  an  experienced  candidate  based  on  incumbent  ideological  extremism.    “Moderate”  describes  an  incumbent   transformed  DW-­‐NOMINATE  of  .1,  and  “extremist”  a  score  of  1.2.   • Figure  4  interacts  incumbent  extremism  with  district  parAsanship,  with  a  “moderate”  district  assigned  a  transformed  Cook  Index  score  of  0,  and  a  “parAsan”   district  a  score  of  40.   • Figure  5  describes  average  candidate  vote  share,  as  a  funcAon  of  experience.   • Figure  6  reports  candidate  fundraising  in  total  contribuAons,  as  a  funcAon  of  experience.   Fig. 5: Candidate Vote Share Fig. 6: Candidate Fundraising by Primary Type and Experience by Primary Type and Party by Previous Electoral Experience by Previous Electoral Experience 80 60 Is the Candidate Experienced? No Yes Copartisan Open Challenger Copartisan Party Democrat Republican 50 0 0 0 Challenger $10,000 100 Average Vote Share 20 40 60 Number of Candidates 20 40 Number of Candidates 50 100 150 200 Open 150 Fig. 2: Experienced Candidates 250 Fig. 1: Candidate Entry 0 By  selecAng  the  pool  of  candidates  that  voters  can  choose  from  in  the   general  elecAon,  party  nominaAng  contests  play  a  fundamental  role  in   determining  the  outcome  of  elecAons  at  all  levels  of  government.     However,  past  research  has  indicated  that,  due  largely  to  the   incumbency  advantage,  primary  compeAAon  has  declined  dramaAcally   since  the  insAtuAon’s  origins.    Strategic  entry  theory  suggests  that   skilled  candidates,  o[en  those  holding  prior  poliAcal  office,  wait  for  the   most  opportune  chance  to  run  for  higher  office.    To  test  this  hypothesis,   I  collected  data  on  all  congressional  districts  and  candidates  from  the   2014  midterm  elecAons.    Using  candidate  informaAon  gathered  from   the  Federal  ElecAon  Commission  and  other  candidate  databases,   district  level  demographic  and  poliAcal  data,  and  incumbent  staAsAcs,  I   developed  a  model  using  the  individual  and  structural  factors  to  predict   when  an  experienced  poliAcian  will  challenge  an  incumbent  within  their   own  party.    The  data  show  that  strong  intraparty  challenges  are  rare   compared  to  cross-­‐party  challenges,  and  that  the  most  ideologically   centrist  incumbents,  of  either  party,  are  the  most  likely  to  be   “primaried”  by  an  experienced  and  ambiAous  challenger.     RESULTS   Has the Candidate Held Office? No Yes Incumbent Has the Candidate Held Office? No Yes Incumbent CONCLUSIONS   Overall,  I  find  that  experienced  poliAcians  tend  to  act  in  a  highly  strategic   fashion  when  choosing  when  to  enter  a  race  for  the  House  of   RepresentaAves,  parAcularly  when  seeking  a  party  nominaAon   As  expected,  experienced  candidates  are  significantly  less  likely  to  challenge   an  incumbent  within  their  party  than  one  from  the  opposing  party,  and   considerably  more  inclined  to  run  for  open  seats.   By  far  the  strongest  predictor  of  a  strong  coparAsan  challenge  is  incumbent   ideological  centrism,  regardless  of  party  affiliaAon.    Ideologically  extreme   candidates  face  very  few  experienced  primary  challenges.   Despite  expectaAons,  district  parAsanship  is  not  a  powerful  indicator  of   coparAsan  challenges,  with  strong  challenges  not  significantly  related  to  the   strength  of  local  parAsanship.    This  suggests  that  ambiAous  poliAcians  lack   high  levels  of  party  loyalty,  willing  to  risk  a  seat  held  by  their  party.     In  terms  of  party  differences,  DemocraAc  candidates  tend  to  be  more   responsive  to  unemployment,  while  Republicans  are  sensiAve  to  previous   incumbent  margins  of  victory.   Surprisingly,  when  controlling  for  fundraising,  previous  poliAcal  experience   does  liZle  to  boost  candidate  vote  share.    However,  strong  candidates  tend   to  raise  significantly  more  money  than  their  inexperienced  counterparts.   In  order  to  fully  understand  the  candidate  decision  to  challenge  an   incumbent  within  their  own  party,  further  research  is  necessary  into   individual  candidate  thought  processes,  as  well  as  the  the  characterisAcs  of   likely  coparAsan  challengers.