Ain'T Misbehavin

Abstract

Members of the House of Representatives appear to be extremely concerned about the potential effects of issue voting on their reelection drives while Senators do not seem similarly worried. Are these views realistic? Using data from the 1978 Center for Political Studies National Election Study, this article develops a model of the maximum amount of issue voting that can be found in congressional elections. For the House and Senate, issue positions of the voter and attributed stands to the Democratic and Republican candidates are employed on six issues: (1) federal job guarantee, (2) rights of the accused, (3) rights of minorities, (4) federal medical insurance, (5) womens' roles, and (6) liberalism-conservatism. The maximum issue voting on these issues is found to be potentially damaging, but more threatening to Senators than to House members because the latter are more electorally secure in the first place. More substantial degrees of policy voting are found for the House on the most important national problem and the most important issue in the campaign (both as identified by the respondent); however, the former issues favor the Democrats overall while the latter help Republican candidates and effectively cancel each other out at least in national aggregates. The conclusion is that Senators have more to fear from issue voting than do House members.