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National Tides and Local Results in U.S. House Elections
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N
ATIONAL
T
IDES AND
L
OCAL
R
ESULTS IN
U.S. H
OUSE
E
LECTIONS
Eric McGhee
Department of Political Science
University of Oregon
August 19, 2004
Abstract
The literature on U.S. House elections tends to recognize that national politics play some role in individual campaigns, but most research still focuses on competitive dynamics at the district level as the phenomena of greatest interest. There has been little attempt to assess the significance of national partisan forces while also acknowledging the role of factors such as the partisan composition of the district or the spending and political skill of the challenger. In this paper, I use a time-series cross-section of House elections from 1972 to 1998 to consider national- and district-level forces together in a single model. I also use hierarchical modeling—a tool relatively new to political science—to examine the consistency of the national-level effect across districts. I find that national politics play a significant role in all congressional campaigns—regardless of the competitiveness of the race or any other factors. In fact, national political tides are instrumental to the very notion of an incumbent defeat. Paper prepared for the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association, September 2-5, 2004. Questions and comments should be addressed to
## email not listed ##
or
## email not listed ##
.
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N
ATIONAL
T
IDES AND
L
OCAL
R
ESULTS IN
U.S. H
OUSE
E
LECTIONS
Eric McGhee
Department of Political Science
University of Oregon
August 19, 2004
Abstract
The literature on U.S. House elections tends to recognize that national politics play some
role in individual campaigns, but most research still focuses on competitive dynamics at
the district level as the phenomena of greatest interest. There has been little attempt to
assess the significance of national partisan forces while also acknowledging the role of
factors such as the partisan composition of the district or the spending and political skill
of the challenger. In this paper, I use a time-series cross-section of House elections from
1972 to 1998 to consider national- and district-level forces together in a single model. I
also use hierarchical modeling—a tool relatively new to political science—to examine
the consistency of the national-level effect across districts. I find that national politics
play a significant role in all congressional campaigns—regardless of the competitiveness
of the race or any other factors. In fact, national political tides are instrumental to the
very notion of an incumbent defeat.
Paper prepared for the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association,
September 2-5, 2004. Questions and comments should be addressed to
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