1. Voting for Congress The Statics and Dynamics of Party Ideology

2. Learning Objectives Analyze the theories of why people vote and apply them to the 2012 Election. Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of how presidential and congressional elections are financed.

3. WHY PARTIES MOVE?

4. Party Movement When do parties change ideologies When do the diverge? When do they resemble each other

5. Where To Build a Bar in Central Texas? Here… in Bastrop

6. Or Here? 6 th Street

7. Why Do you See These two across the Street From Each Other?

8. Why Does This, Appear next to This?

9. Why Do We Have?

10. THESE STRATEGIES APPLY TO POLITICAL PARTIES

11. Lets Apply this to Ideology Here is a distribution with 0 representing policy liberalism, and 100 representing policy conservativism A and B represent political parties

12. Where Parties Should Go in A Normal Distribution They Move To the Center

13. Why go to the Center You Cant leapfrog the other party More voters At what point do you stop moving to the Center?

14. When do you stop?

15. The Problem of Being Too Moderate A Third Party could grab your flank Too many of your people stay home

16. STAYING PUT

17. What About A Bimodal Distribution?

18. Party Polarization

19. One Hump is often Bigger 2010

20. In 2008 it was the other way

21. MULTI PARTY SYSTEMS

22. Polygamy

23. A polymodal System

24. A Polymodal System In PR systems, 1 party for Each hump How might this differ in a Single Member District System?

25. In Germany

26. Party Movement in Multiparty Systems Stay Put! Distinguish yourself from your enemies

27. How our Parties Deal with the Humps Social and Economic Conservatives (within the GOP) The Many Humps within the Democratic Party

28. WHY DO WE HAVE A TWO PARTY SYSTEM

29. How Many Parties in Majority Elections Duverger’s Law – Mechanical Effect – Psychological Effect

30. The Kinds of Parties Those who are there to win Those that are there to influence

31. How many parties in a PR system? As many parties as humps exist Depends on the threshold

32. NEW PARTIES

33. Getting New Parties in Our System Existing parties cant jump over each other New Parties come from – Between the gap – On the fringe

34. What New parties Want to Do Win electionsThreaten Existing Parties

35. How can Third Parties Win? A Shift In Franchise…. The electorate changes!

36. Splitting the Vote

37. Parties Will often Try To be Ambiguous, Why?

38. Voting For Congress

39. Goals of Congressperson The Primary Goal is to Get Elected The Next goal is to get re-elected (Mayhew, 1974)

40. PARTISANSHIP AND TURNOUT

42. Lower turnout in Congressional Elections Lower Excitement Lower Salience Lower Information

43. Partisanship is Most Important The biggest factor in Congressional election Even in open seat elections

44. Safe Seats Seat Maximization through Gerrymandering Majority Minority Districts

45. Residential Self Selection

46. INCUMBENCY Major Factor 2

47. Incumbency Can Eclipse Partisanship in some places A resource that provides many benefits

48. Incumbency The incumbent dominates the discourse The incumbent has the advantages It is the Incumbent’s seat to lose

49. Incumbent Benefit - Money Attract Money at Higher Rates The War Chest

50. Incumbent Benefit- Name Recognition We Vote For Who We Know What can Incumbents Do?

52. Benefit 3 – Weak Challengers Run against Losers Scare off Good Challengers

53. Lose<Not Run<Win

54. Voluntary Retirements When candidates leave office, rather than run for re-election. Why people Retire?

55. HOW INCUMBENTS CAN LOSE

56. Stop Playing the Game Get too Old Become inattentive Scandal

57. Strategic Challengers can Alter This They run when national trends favor their party They have local advantages as well They also have the most to lose!

58. How Strategic Challengers Change Campaigns Attract Money Can turn National Issues into Local Ones Are Quality Challengers as Well

59. What is a Quality Challenger A person who has formerly/currently held elective office Name Recognition, Access to Money, a constituuency

60. INCUMBENCY IN THE HOUSE AND SENATE

61. House Incumbency

62. Senate Incumbency

63. House vs Senate Incumbents Why are Senators more vulnerable?