Campaign and Contextual Influences on Voter Participation in State Legislative Elections

1999 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 403-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
ROBERT E. HOGAN
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Power ◽  
Campaign Spending ◽  
Voter Participation ◽  
Strong Impact ◽  
Contextual Influences ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Campaign Effects ◽  
State Legislative Elections ◽  
Legislative Districts ◽  
State Legislative

Recent studies suggest that campaign mobilization factors such as candidate spending and electoral competition play a substantial role in influencing voter participation in elections. This analysis focuses on the relative influence of these campaign effects along with a variety of contextual features on district-level turnout in state legislative elections. Models testing a variety of variables across seven states in 1994 point to the overwhelming influence of socioeconomic and political context, with campaign mobilization effects contributing a much smaller degree of explanatory power. While some mobilization factors (such as campaign spending) have the potential to exert a strong impact on turnout, factors beyond the control of candidate campaigns are responsible for much of the observed variation in turnout across state legislative districts.

scholarly journals Rejoinder

1995 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 49-58
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Aistrup
Keyword(s):  
Structural Characteristics ◽  
Electoral System ◽  
Legislative Elections ◽  
Southern State ◽  
Social Events ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
Time Periods ◽  
State Legislative Elections ◽  
Legislative Districts ◽  
State Legislative

The commentary of our colleagues is appreciated. Even though this reply will not settle this controversy, it might provide a starting point for others wishing to examine this topic. The article had two major findings. The first is that there was a minimal Democratic bias in contested southern state legislative districts in the 1970s and 1980s. The second is that the Democrats appear to have used the switch from multimember districts (MMDs) to single-member districts (SMDs) to insulate themselves from large vote swings by lowering the swing ratio (responsiveness) of the electoral system. Krassa and Combs make two criticisms of this research: First, the grouping time periods together means the analysis includes the effects of other structural and social events, thus confounding the analysis of changes in the swing ratio and bias. They suggest a need to adopt a similar methodology to King and Gelman (1991), which controls for the structural characteristics in southern state legislative elections. Their second critique is the interpretation of a declining swing ratio protecting incumbents is incorrect. A more desirable situation for Democratic incumbents is to have a high swing ratio because it converts lower vote shares into a higher proportion of Democratically controlled districts. Bullock’s critique notes the findings are not generalizable to the affirmative action gerrymandering associated with the 1990s redistricting process. I begin by addressing the methodological critique of Krassa and Combs. Then I turn to the latter two questions involving the interpretation of our findings.

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