How does a campaign for higher office affect legislators’ behavior on the floor of the House? I argue that legislators with progressive ambition have incentives to demonstrate policy specialization; however, these incentives are mitigated when ambitious legislators campaign for higher office. I develop a measure of policy specialization from floor speeches and test hypotheses with data from the careers of five classes of representatives in the U.S. House. Results show that higher office-seekers demonstrate greater specialization, except when they run for higher office.
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