The theory of the “personal vote” assumes that constituent service, or the process by which members of Congress help their constituents navigate the federal bureaucracy, is a component of representation that transcends partisanship. However, recent research suggests that affective polarization and negative partisanship may discourage constituents from reaching out to ask for help from cross-partisan legislators. Using a conjoint experiment, I show that shared partisanship has a strong effect on constituents’ decisions about which of their legislators to contact for assistance. However, positive in-party affect is unrelated to these preferences, suggesting that negative partisanship is responsible for this result. Gender and seniority also matter for constituents’ preferences even when accounting for shared partisanship. The results suggest that legislators’ ability to build a “personal vote” by performing constituent service may be weakened in an era of strong partisanship.
AbramowitzA. I.WebsterS. (2016). The rise of negative partisanship and the nationalization of US elections in the 21st century. Electoral Studies, 41, 12–22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2015.11.001
3.
AbramowitzA. I.WebsterS. W. (2018). Negative partisanship: Why Americans dislike parties but behave like rabid partisans. Political Psychology, 39(S1), 119–135. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12479
4.
AbramsonS. F.KoçakK.MagazinnikA. (2022). What do we learn about voter preferences from conjoint experiments?American Journal of Political Science, 66(4), 1008–1020. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12714
AtkesonL. R.HamelB. T. (2020). Fit for the job: Candidate qualifications and vote choice in low information elections. Political Behavior, 42(1), 59–82. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-018-9486-0
BartelsL. M. (2000). Partisanship and voting behavior, 1952-1996. American Journal of Political Science, 44(1), 35–50. https://doi.org/10.2307/2669291
9.
BroockmanD. E. (2013). Black politicians are more intrinsically motivated to advance blacks’ interests: A field experiment manipulating political incentives. American Journal of Political Science, 57(3), 521–536. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12018
10.
BroockmanD. E. (2014). Distorted communication, unequal representation: Constituents communicate less to representatives not of their race. American Journal of Political Science, 58(2), 307–321. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12068
11.
BroockmanD. E.RyanT. J. (2016). Preaching to the choir: Americans prefer communicating to copartisan elected officials. American Journal of Political Science, 60(4), 1093–1107. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12228
12.
BurdenB. C. (2007). Personal roots of representation. Princeton University Press.
13.
ButlerD. M.BroockmanD. E. (2011). Do politicians racially discriminate against constituents? A field experiment on state legislators. American Journal of Political Science, 55(3), 463–477. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2011.00515.x
14.
CainB.FerejohnJ.MorrisF. (1987). The personal vote: Constituency service and electoral independence. Harvard University Press.
15.
CampbellR.CowleyP. (2014). What voters want: Reactions to candidate characteristics in a survey experiment. Political Studies, 62(4), 745–765. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9248.12048
16.
CarnesN.LupuN. (2016). Do voters dislike working-class candidates? Voter biases and the descriptive underrepresentation of the working class. American Political Science Review, 110(4), 832–844. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055416000551
17.
ComenetzJ. (2016). Frequently occurring surnames in the 2010 Census. United States Census Bureau.
18.
CoppockA.McClellanO. A. (2019). Validating the demographic, political, psychological, and experimental results obtained from a new source of online survey respondents. Research & Politics, 6(1), Article 205316801882217. https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168018822174
19.
CostaM. (2021a). He said, she said: The gender double bind in legislator-constituent communication. Politics and Gender, 17(4), 528–551. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1743923x19000862
20.
CostaM. (2021b). Ideology, not affect: What Americans want from political representation. American Journal of Political Science, 65(2), 342–358. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12571
21.
CostaM.SchaffnerB. F. (2018). How gender conditions the way citizens evaluate and engage with their representatives. Political Research Quarterly, 71(1), 46–58. https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912917722235
EllisW. C.WilsonW. C. (2013). Minority chairs and congressional attention to minority issues: The effect of descriptive representation in positions of institutional power. Social Science Quarterly, 94(5), 1207–1221. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12023
24.
EnglishA.PearsonK.StrolovitchD. Z. (2019). Who represents me? Race, gender, partisan congruence, and representational alternatives in a polarized America. Political Research Quarterly, 72(4), 785–804. https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912918806048
25.
FennoR. F. (1978). Home style: Representatives in their districts. Little Brown & Co.
26.
FiorinaM. P. (1977). The case of the vanishing marginals: The bureaucracy did it. American Political Science Review, 71(1), 177–181. https://doi.org/10.2307/1956961
27.
FrederickB. (2008). Constituency population and representation in the U.S. House. American Politics Research, 36(3), 358–381. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673x07309740
28.
GambleK. L. (2007). Black political representation: An examination of legislative activity within US House committees. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 32(3), 421–447. https://doi.org/10.3162/036298007781699663
29.
GayC. (2002). Spirals of trust? The effect of descriptive representation on the relationship between citizens and their government. American Journal of Political Science, 46(4), 717–732. https://doi.org/10.2307/3088429
30.
GroseC. R.MangumM.MartinC. (2007). Race, political empowerment, and constituency service: Descriptive representation and the hiring of African- American congressional staff. Polity, 39(4), 449–478. https://doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.polity.2300081
31.
HainmuellerJ.HopkinsD.YamamotoT. (2014a). cjoint: Causal inference in conjoint analysis: Understanding multi-dimensional choices via stated preference experiments, volume22 number 1. R package. version 2.1.0.https://CRAN.R-project.org/package=cjoint
32.
HainmuellerJ.HopkinsD. J.YamamotoT. (2014b). Causal inference in conjoint analysis: Understanding multidimensional choices via stated preference experiments. Political Analysis, 22(1), 1–30. https://doi.org/10.1093/pan/mpt024
33.
HeberligE. S. (2003). Congressional parties, fundraising, and committee ambition. Political Research Quarterly, 56(2), 151–161. https://doi.org/10.2307/3219894
34.
HerreraR.YawnM. (1999). The emergence of the personal vote. The Journal of Politics, 61(1), 136–150. https://doi.org/10.2307/2647778
35.
Hertel-FernandezA.MildenbergerM.StokesL. C. (2019). Legislative staff and representation in Congress. American Political Science Review, 113(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055418000606
36.
HuddyL.MasonL.AarøeL. (2015). Expressive partisanship: Campaign involvement, political emotion, and partisan identity. American Political Science Review, 109(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055414000604
37.
IyengarS.LelkesY.LevenduskyM.MalhotraN.WestwoodS. J. (2019). The origins and consequences of affective polarization in the United States. Annual Review of Political Science, 22(1), 129–146. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-polisci-051117-073034
38.
IyengarS.SoodG.LelkesY. (2012). Affect, not ideology: A social identity perspective on polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly, 76(3), 405–431. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfs038
39.
JacobsonG. C. (2015). It’s nothing personal: The decline of the incumbency advantage in US House elections. The Journal of Politics, 77(3), 861–873. https://doi.org/10.1086/681670
40.
JohannesJ. R. (1980). The distribution of casework in the US Congress: An uneven burden. Legislative Studies Quarterly, 5(4), 517–544. https://doi.org/10.2307/439572
41.
JohannesJ. R.McAdamsJ. C. (1981). The congressional incumbency effect: Is it casework, policy compatibility, or something else? An examination of the 1978 election. American Journal of Political Science, 25(3), 512–542. https://doi.org/10.2307/2110817
42.
KaslovskyJ. (2022). Senators at home: Local attentiveness and policy representation in Congress. American Political Science Review, 116(2), 645–661. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055421001088
LawlessJ. L. (2004). Politics of presence? Congresswomen and symbolic representation. Political Research Quarterly, 57(1), 81–99. https://doi.org/10.1177/106591290405700107
45.
LeeF. E.OppenheimerB. I. (1999). Sizing up the Senate: The unequal consequences of equal representation. University of Chicago Press.
46.
LowandeK.RitchieM.LauterbachE. (2019). Descriptive and substantive representation in Congress: Evidence from 80,000 congressional inquiries. American Journal of Political Science, 63(3), 644–659. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12443
47.
MansbridgeJ. (1999). Should blacks represent blacks and women represent women? A contingent ‘yes. The Journal of Politics, 61(3), 628–657. https://doi.org/10.2307/2647821
48.
MasonL. (2016). A cross-cutting calm: How social sorting drives affective polarization. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80(S1), 351–377. https://doi.org/10.1093/poq/nfw001
49.
MasonL. (2018). Uncivil agreement: How politics became our identity. University of Chicago Press.
50.
MatsonM.FineT. S. (2006). Gender, ethnicity, and ballot information: Ballot cues in low-information elections. State Politics and Policy Quarterly, 6(1), 49–72. https://doi.org/10.1177/153244000600600103
51.
McDermottM. L. (1998). Race and gender cues in low-information elections. Political Research Quarterly, 51(4), 895–918. https://doi.org/10.2307/449110
MilerK. C. (2010). Constituency representation in congress: The view from capitol hill. Cambridge University Press.
54.
OrrL. V.FowlerA.HuberG. A. (2023). Is affective polarization driven by identity, loyalty, or substance?American Journal of Political Science, 67(4), 948–962. https://doi.org/10.1111/ajps.12796
RomeroD. W.SandersF. (1994). Loosened partisan attachments and receptivity to incumbent behaviors: A panel analysis, 1972-1976. Political Research Quarterly, 47(1), 177–192. https://doi.org/10.1177/106591299404700109
SenM. (2017). How political signals affect public support for judicial nominations: Evidence from a conjoint experiment. Political Research Quarterly, 70(2), 374–393. https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912917695229
59.
SerraG.MoonD. (1994). Casework, issue positions, and voting in congressional elections: A district analysis. The Journal of Politics, 56(1), 200–213. https://doi.org/10.2307/2132353
60.
SerraG.PinneyN. (2004). Casework, issues and voting in state legislative elections: A district analysis. Journal of Legislative Studies, 10(4), 32–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/1357233042000322472
61.
SungY.-H. (2022). How U.S. Voters elect prosecutors: Evidence from a conjoint experiment. Political Research Quarterly.
62.
TeeleD. L.KallaJ.RosenbluthF. (2018). The ties that double bind: Social roles and women’s underrepresentation in politics. American Political Science Review, 112(3), 525–541. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055418000217
63.
TomzM. R.WeeksJ. L. P. (2013). Public opinion and the democratic peace. American Political Science Review, 107(4), 849–865. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0003055413000488
University of Michigan and Stanford University. (2017). American National Election Studies (ANES) cumulative data file. URL:https://electionstudies.org
66.
WagnerM. W. (2007). Beyond policy representation in the US House: Partisanship, polarization, and citizens’ attitudes about casework. American Politics Research, 35(6), 771–789. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673x07299867
67.
WebsterS. W.AbramowitzA. I. (2017). The ideological foundations of affective polarization in the US electorate. American Politics Research, 45(4), 621–647. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673x17703132
68.
YiannakisD. E. (1981). The grateful electorate: Casework and congressional elections. American Journal of Political Science, 25(3), 568–580. https://doi.org/10.2307/2110819
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.
