Evaluating Candidate Positioning and Success in the 2018 Midterm Elections

The 2018 House midterm elections saw Democrats regain a majority in the chamber for the first time in almost a decade. Contributing to this partisan change was the difficult situation Republican House incumbents were subject to. This article will examine the different factors contributing to the Republicans’ loss including the role of ideology in candidate success in both the primary and general election stage, the effects of retirements and open seats, and the value of presidential endorsements and legislative position taking.

Voters’ Response to Candidate Ambiguity in U.S. House Elections

There is a sizable literature on the causes and effects of candidate positioning in elections. An implication of this research is that candidates present clear issue positions to the electorate and citizens then make voting decisions based on this information. However, if candidates are ambiguous in the positions they take, this may impair voters’ decision-making and prompt voters to punish them for inconsistency. Although there is a growing literature on the effects of candidate and party ambiguity, consensus on the implications of ambiguity for candidates and voters is yet to be achieved. Using data from the 2010 House elections, we find that candidate ambiguity undermines voters’ ability to vote consistent with the spatial logic just as Downs speculated. We also find, in contrast to Downs, that voters punish rather than reward candidate ambiguity. We suggest that a possible mechanism is in voters’ valence ratings of candidates.

The Electoral Logic of Party Reputations

This chapter presents a theory of candidate positioning. The key to this account is the policy reputations of the two political parties. Candidates must take positions consistent with the policy reputations of their parties to collect a reputational premium. The chapter's job is twofold. The first task is to demonstrate that programmatic party identifiers favor candidates of their party on the grounds that they represent the overall outlook of their party, independent of the specific policy positions that the candidates take. The second task is to specify the range of positions that a candidate may take and still be judged to represent the overall outlook of the party by supporters of his party who know and share its outlook.