What are the causal effects of legislative party switching on campaign fundraising? Using a selection-on-observables strategy (a first in the study of U.S. party switchers), we demonstrate that relative to other similarly situated legislators, party switchers rely more heavily on partisan and ideological, out-of-district individual donors, and direct party contributions. In short, switchers—in trying to alleviate the electoral costs of switching—rely disproportionately on donors motivated to protect vulnerable incumbents of a particular party. We conclude with a discussion of how these dynamics reinforce partisan polarization and raise normative questions about representation and the role of the “surrogate constituency.”
AbadieA.ImbensG. W. (2006). Large sample properties of matching estimators for average treatment effects. Econometrica, 74, 235-267.
2.
AldrichJ. H. (2011). Why parties? A second look. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
3.
AldrichJ. H.BiancoW. T. (1992). “A Game-Theoretic Model of Party Affiliation of Candidates and Office Holders.” Mathematical and Computer Modelling, 16, 103-116.
4.
BafumiJ.HerronM. C. (2010). Leapfrog representation and extremism: A study of American voters and their members in congress. American Political Science Review, 104, 519-542.
5.
BakerA. E. (2016). Getting short-changed? The impact of outside money on district representation. Social Science Quarterly, 97, 1096-1107.
6.
BarberM. (2016). Donation motivations: Testing theories of access and ideology. Political Research Quarterly, 69, 148-159.
7.
BiancoW. T. (1994). Trust: Representatives and constituents. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
8.
BonicaA. (2013). Database on ideology, money in politics, and elections: Public version 1.0 [Computer file]. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Libraries. Retrieved from http://data.stanford.edu/dime
9.
BonicaA. (2014). Mapping the ideological marketplace. American Journal of Political Science, 58, 367-387.
CanonD. T. (1992). The emergence of the Republican Party in the South, from 1968 to 1988. In HertzkeA. D.PetersR. M. (Eds.), The atomistic congress: An interpretation of congressional change (pp. 73-106). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe.
12.
CastleD.FettP. J. (2000). “Member goals and party switching in the U.S. congress.” In BiancoW. T. (Ed.), Congress on display, congress at work (pp. 231-2414). Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
13.
ChoateJ. (2003). Torn and frayed: Congressional norms and party switchers in an era of reform. Westport, CT: Praeger.
14.
CoxG. W.McCubbinsM. D. (2005). Setting the agenda: Responsible party government in the U.S. House of Representatives. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
15.
CrespinM. H. (2005, January). Out with the old, in with the new: Redistricting and individual campaign contributions to congressional candidates. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, New Orleans, LA.
16.
CrespinM. H.EdwardsB. (2016). Redistricting and individual contributions to congressional candidates. Political Research Quarterly, 69, 220-232.
17.
DiamondA.SekhonJ. S. (2013). Genetic matching for estimating causal effects: A general multivariate matching method for achieving balance in observational studies. Review of Economics and Statistics, 95, 932-945.
18.
EvansK.PetersonR.HadleyN. (2012). Principled or opportunist? Perceptions of Arlen Specter and his party switch during the 2010 midterm election. American Politics Research, 40, 880-902.
19.
FennoR. F.Jr. (1978). Home style: House members in their districts. Boston, MA: Little, Brown.
20.
FranciaP. L.GreenJ. C.HerrnsonP. S.PowellL. W.WilcoxC. (2003). The financiers of congressional elections: Investors, ideologues, and intimates. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
21.
GimpelJ. G.LeeF. E.Pearson-MerkowitzS. (2008). The check is in the mail: Interdistrict funding flows in congressional elections. American Journal of Political Science, 52, 373-394.
22.
GlaserJ. M. (2001). “When Legislators Change Sides: The implications of party Defections in the south.” In KuzenskiJ. C.MorelandL. W.SteedR. P. (Eds.), Eye of the storm: The south and congress in an era of change (pp. 69-80). Westport, CT: Praeger.
23.
GroseC. R.YoshinakaA. (2003). The electoral consequences of party switching by incumbent members of congress, 1947-2000. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 28, 55-75.
24.
HagerG. L.TalbertJ. C. (2000). Look for the party label: Party influences on voting in the U.S. House. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 25, 75-99.
25.
HallB. L. (2013). The view from the other side of the aisle: Congressional party switchers and their environments (Doctoral dissertation). University of Missouri–Columbia.
26.
HamelB. T.MillerM. G. (2019). How voters punish and donors protect legislators embroiled in Scandal. Political Research Quarterly, 72, 117-131.
27.
HassellH. J. G. (2016). Party control of party primaries: Party influence in nominations for the U.S. Senate. The Journal of Politics, 78, 75-87.
28.
HassellH. J. G. (2018). The party’s primary: Control of congressional nominations. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
29.
HendersonJ.ChatfieldS. (2011). Who matches? Propensity scores and bias in the causal effects of education on participation. The Journal of Politics, 73, 646-658.
30.
HerronM. C.WandJ. N. (2007). Assessing partisan bias in voting technology: The case of the 2004 New Hampshire recount. Electoral Studies, 26, 247-261.
31.
HillS. J.HuberG. A. (2017). Representativeness and motivations of the contemporary donorate: Results from merged survey and administrative records. Political Behavior, 39, 3-29.
32.
HirschmanA. O. (1970). Exit, voice, and loyalty: Responses to decline in firms, organizations, and states. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
33.
JohnsonB. (2010). Individual contributions: A fundraising advantage for the ideologically extreme?American Politics Research, 38, 890-908.
34.
KiewietD. R.McCubbinsM. D. (1991). The logic of delegation: Congressional parties and the appropriations process. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
35.
KingG. (1988). “Statistical models for political science event counts: Bias in conventional procedures and evidence for the exponential poisson regression model.” American Journal of Political Science, 32, 838-863.
36.
LaddJ. M.LenzG. S. (2009). Exploiting a rare communication shift to document the persuasive power of the news media. American Journal of Political Science, 53, 394-410.
37.
La RajaR. J.SchaffnerB. F. (2015). Campaign finance and political polarization: When purists prevail. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
38.
LeeF. E. (2009). Beyond ideology: Politics, principles, and partisanship in the U.S. Senate. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press.
39.
McCartyN. M.PooleK. T.RosenthalH. (2001). The hunt for party discipline in Congress. American Political Science Review, 95, 673-687.
40.
McKeeS. C.YoshinakaA. (2015). Late to the parade: Party switchers in contemporary U.S. southern legislatures. Party Politics, 21, 957-969.
41.
MutzD. C. (1995). Effects of horse-race coverage on campaign coffers: Strategic contributing in presidential primaries. The Journal of Politics, 57, 1015-1042.
42.
NeymanJ. (1990). On the application of probability theory to agricultural experiments. Essay on principles. Section 9. Statistical Science, 5, 465-472.
43.
NokkenT. P. (2000). Dynamics of congressional loyalty: Party defection and roll call behavior, 1947-1997. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 25, 417-444.
44.
NokkenT. P. (2003). Ideological congruence versus electoral success: Distribution of party organization contributions in senate elections, 1990-2000. American Politics Research, 31, 3-26.
45.
NokkenT. P.PooleK. T. (2004). Congressional party defection in American history. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 29, 545-568.
46.
PapkeL. E.WooldridgeJ. M. (1996). Econometric methods for fractional response variables with an application to 401(k) plan participation rates. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 11, 619-632.
47.
RubinD. B. (1974). Estimating causal effects of treatments in randomized and nonrandomized studies. Journal of Educational Psychology, 66, 688-701.
48.
StoneW. J.SimasE. N. (2010). Candidate valence and ideological positions in U.S. House elections. American Journal of Political Science, 54, 371-388.
49.
TausanovitchC.WarshawC. (2017). Estimating candidates’ political orientation in a polarized congress. Political Analysis, 25, 167-187.
50.
WilhiteA.TheilmannJ. (1989). Campaign contributions by political parties: Ideology vs. winning. Atlantic Economic Journal, 17(2), 11-20.
51.
YoshinakaA. (2005). House party switchers and committee assignments: Who gets “what, when, and how?”Legislative Studies Quarterly, 30, 391-406.
52.
YoshinakaA. (2016). Crossing the aisle: Party switching by U.S. legislators in the postwar era. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.
53.
YoshinakaA.McKeeS. C. (forthcoming). Short-term pain for long-term gain: The logic of legislative party switching in the contemporary American South. State Politics & Policy Quarterly.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
