Reevaluating Competition and Turnout in U.S. House Elections
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 12802468 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Daniel J Moskowitz (0000-0003-1216-8268, corresponding author), Benjamin Schneer |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 191-223 |
| Publication date | 2019-04-10 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Quarterly Journal of Political Science (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1554-0626 • E-ISSN: 1554-0634 |
| Publisher | Now Publishers (PUBLISHER • NL) |
| DOI | 10.1561/100.00018029 |
| OpenAlex | W2940084819 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 12 |
| References cited | 50 |
Does electoral competitiveness boost turnout in U.S. House elections? Using an individual panel of turnout records compiled from the voter files of all 50 states, we exploit variation in district competitiveness induced by the 2012 redistricting cycle to provide credible estimates of the effect of competitiveness on turnout. When tracking the same voters across time under differing levels of competitiveness, we precisely estimate the effect on turnout to be near zero. Although past cross-sectional research reports a link between competitiveness and turnout in House elections, we demonstrate that residents in competitive districts differ markedly from those in uncompetitive districts along a number of observable characteristics correlated with turnout, and we argue that this induces bias in most cross-sectional estimates. Secondary evidence tracking voter perceptions of competitiveness and campaign behavior provides support for our finding. Voters have scant awareness of competitiveness in House elections, and, while campaign spending is strongly related to competitiveness, it is directed into avenues that do not appreciably increase turnout. Our findings have important implications for the competitiveness-turnout relationship in other electoral settings with geographically compact, single-member districts
Competition (biology · Economics · House of Representatives · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Turnout · Voter turnout · Voting · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Game Theory and Voting Systems · Law · Political Influence and Corporate Strategies
Ties
Padding and pruning
District Competitiveness Increases Voter Turnout
Using movers to identify close election effects
Race to the Top
Does a voter's decision to sit out an election depend upon where others stand
Media Consumption, Social‐Media Political Tracking, and Vote Intention Across Four Back‐to‐Back Israeli Elections (2019–2022)
Fiscal rules and electoral turnout
Partisan Alignment Increases Voter Turnout
Party Competition and Cooperation Shape Affective Polarization
Ballot Reform, the Personal Vote, and Political Representation in the United States
Estimating the unintended participation penalty under top-two primaries with a discontinuity design
To Vote or Not to Vote
Follow the Leader
A Theory of Participation in Elections
An economic theory of democracy
Contemporary Democracies
Closeness, Expenditures, and Turnout in the 1982 U.S. House Elections
Explaining voter turnout
Political Advertising in 2014
Unintentional Gerrymandering
Persistence in Political Participation
The Exaggerated Effects of Advertising on Turnout
Are Americans Stuck in Uncompetitive Enclaves? An Appraisal of U.S. Electoral Competition
Electoral and Policy Consequences of Voter Turnout
The rational behavior theory of voting participation
Is the act of voting rational
The rational behavior theory of voter participation
Election closeness and voter turnout
Voting and not voting at the same time
Covering Campaigns
Using Repeat Challengers to Estimate the Effect of Campaign Spending on Election Outcomes in the U.S. House
Voice and Equality
Priming the Vote
Do Televised Presidential Ads Increase Voter Turnout? Evidence from a Natural Experiment
Closeness and Turnout
Information, Activation, and Electoral Competition in the 2002 Congressional Elections
Redistricting and the Causal Impact of Race on Voter Turnout
Perceptions vs. Actual Exposure to Electoral Competition and Effects on Political Participation
Testing Core Predictions of Spatial Models
Pivotality and Turnout
Aggregate Effects of Large-Scale Campaigns on Voter Turnout
Cause or Effect? Turnout in Hispanic Majority-Minority Districts
Validation
Voter Mobilization, Experimentation, and Translational Social Science
The Mobilization of Congressional Electorates
What Affects Voter Turnout
The Geographic Distribution of Political Preferences
The Primacy of Race in the Geography of Income‐Based Voting
The Participatory Effects of Redistricting
Old Voters, New Voters, and the Personal Vote
Identifying the Persuasive Effects of Presidential Advertising
The Vanishing Marginals and Electoral Responsiveness
The Electoral College, Mobilization, and Turnout in the 2000 Presidential Election
Field Experiments and the Study of Voter Turnout
When Natural Experiments Are Neither Natural nor Experiments
Partisan Effects of Voter Turnout in Senatorial and Gubernatorial Elections
A Theory of the Calculus of Voting
American Voter Turnout in Comparative Perspective
| Unique citing works | 12 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2025 (6) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 12 |