Do Voters Know Enough to Punish Out‐of‐Step Congressional Candidates
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6299983 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Brandon Marshall (0000-0001-7661-746X, Stony Brook University, corresponding author), Michael Peres (0000-0002-6732-0733, Stony Brook University, corresponding author), Michael Peress (Stony Brook University) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 47 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 639-675 |
| Publication date | 2022-08-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Legislative Studies Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0362-9805 • E-ISSN: 1939-9162 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1111/lsq.12355 |
| OpenAlex | W3184319492 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 49 |
Traditional democratic norms suggest that accountability requires voters to be able to accurately perceive the positions of candidates for office. When asked to place congressional candidates on an ideological spectrum, voters show a surprisingly high level of both inaccuracy and variation in the policy positions of candidates. In this article, we investigate three theories of candidate placement to determine the possible sources for voter inaccuracy of candidate positions: the assimilation and contrast theory, the partisan cheerleading theory, and the information theory. We develop an instrumental variables approach for distinguishing between the competing theories. We find some evidence for assimilation and contrast among low knowledge voters and little support for cheerleading. We also find evidence that the actual position of the candidate has a detectable but small effect on voters’ perceptions of that candidate, limiting the extent to which House candidates are held individually accountable for the positions they take. Instead, we find evidence that voters cue off of the positions of the party’s other candidates, suggesting that candidates for a political party are held collectively accountable
Accountability · Contrast (vision · Democracy · Economics · Ideology · Limiting · Perception · Political science · Politics · Position (finance · Positive economics · Computer Science · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Gender Politics and Representation · Law · Media Influence and Politics · Psychology · Social Psychology
Spatial Models of Parliamentary Voting
The Increasingly United States
A Unified Theory of Party Competition
Independent Politics
Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators
An economic theory of democracy
You Cannot be Serious
Partisan Bias in Factual Beliefs about Politics
The ironic impact of activists
National Forces in State Legislative Elections
Quality, Not Quantity
Does the Ideological Proximity Between Candidates and Voters Affect Voting in U.S. House Elections
Dynamic Ideal Point Estimation via Markov Chain Monte Carlo for the U.S. Supreme Court, 1953–1999
Eschewing Obfuscation? Campaigns and the Perception of U.S. Senate Incumbents
Constituents’ Responses to Congressional Roll‐Call Voting
An Exploration of Correct Voting in Recent U.S. Presidential Elections
Candidate Positioning in U.S. House Elections
Do Citizens Apply Gender Stereotypes to Infer Candidates' Ideological Orientations
Partisan Perceptual Bias and the Information Environment
Common-Space Ideal Points, Committee Assignments, and Financial Interests in the State Legislatures
Contrast Effects in Estimating Policies of the Federal Government
Assimilation and Contrast of Presidential Candidates' Issue Positions, 1972
Ideology and the US Congressional Vote
Does It Really Hurt to Be Out of Step
Multidimensional Analysis of Roll Call Data via Bayesian Simulation
Do Surveys Provide Representative or Whimsical Assessments of the Economy
Strategic Challenger Entry in a Federal System
Advantages and Disadvantages of Cognitive Heuristics in Political Decision Making
An Informational Rationale for Political Parties
Mapping the Ideological Marketplace
Candidate Perception in an Ambiguous World
Analyzing Misinformation
Heterogeneity in Perceptions of National Economic Conditions
Educating the Least Informed
Inducing Apparently Self-Interested Political Preferences
Partisanship, Political Control, and Economic Assessments
Ideology and Interests in the Political Marketplace
Ideological Signaling and Incumbency Advantage
The Role of Social Groups in Political Thinking
Leapfrog Representation and Extremism
Shortcuts Versus Encyclopedias
Spatial Voting in the 2004 Presidential Election
What Happens When Extremists Win Primaries
Attitude Attribution
The Ideological Mapping of American Legislatures
Benchmarking across Borders
Out of Step, Out of Office
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2025 (1) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |