Gary C. Jacobson

1. Introduction. 2. The Context. The Constitutional Framework. Congressional Districts. Partisan Gerrymandering. Racial Gerrymandering. States as Electoral Units. Election Laws. Political Parties. Social and Political Contexts. 3. Congressional Candidates. The Incumbency Factor. Measuring the Value of Incumbency. The Vanishing Marginals. Sources of the Incumbency Advantage. The Institutional Characteristics of Congress. Changes in Voting Behavior. Constituency Service. The Variability of the Incumbency Advantage. Discouraging the Opposition. Money in Congressional Elections. The Connection between Money and Success. Why Campaign Money Is More Important to Challengers. The Career in the District. Motivating Challengers. 4. Congressional Campaigns. Campaign Money. Political Action Committees. Party Money. Self-Financing by Candidates. Fundraising Tactics. Campaign Organizations. Campaign Strategies. Campaign Media. Personal Campaigning. Campaign Messages. Challengers' Campaigns. Going Negative. Incumbents' Campaigns. Candidates for Open Seats. Senate Campaigns. Voter Education and Issue Advocacy Campaigns. Concluding Observations. 5. Congressional Voters. Turnout in Congressional Elections. Partisanship in Congressional Elections. Alternative Interpretations of Party Identification. Partisanship and Voting. Information and Voting. Recall and Recognition of Candidates. Contacting Voters. The Effects of Campaign Spending. Models of Voting Behavior. Evaluating Incumbents. Winning Challengers. Issues in Congressional Elections. 6. National Politics and Congressional Elections. Political Interpretations of Congressional Elections. Models of Aggregate Congressional Election Results. Presidential Coattails. National Conditions and Strategic Politics. Campaign Themes. House Elections, 1980-1998. The Clinton Problem. Nationalizing the Vote. The Campaigns. The Scandal and the Campaigns. House Election Patterns, 1980-1998. Senate Elections, 1980-1998. 7. Elections and The Politics of Congress. The Congressional Parties. The Committee Systems. Making Policy. Particularism. Serving the Organized. Immobility. Symbolism. Doing the Right Thing. Building Coalitions. The Budgetary Process. 8. Representation, Responsibility, Impeachment Politics, and the Future of Congressional Elections. Representation. Policy Congruence. Beyond Policy Congruence. Descriptive Representation. Responsiveness without Responsibility. The Revival of Party Cohesion. Ideological Polarization in Congress and the Electorate. Party Polarization: The Electoral Connection. Diverging Electoral Constituencies. Chicken or Egg? Party Polarization and the Politics of Impeachment. Divided Government in the 1990s. Reforming Congress. Term Limits. The Public's Evaluation of Congress. Toward the Millennium. Bibliography. Index.

Common to both political folk wisdom and political science is the idea that the mid-term congressional election is a referendum on the performance of the current administration. The more popular a president and the more successful his policies, the better his party does at the midterm. The president's party almost invariably loses some congressional seats in off-year elections (since the Civil War the president's party has added House seats only once—in 1934—though it occasionally picks up Senate seats). But the extent of its losses varies widely (from one to 56 House seats in postwar midterms), depending, so the theory goes, on how the electorate rates the administration's performance. The 1982 congressional elections will, in this view, be a referendum on President Reagan's administration and in particular on his economic policies, which have been the focus of political attention since inauguration day. If this is true, then economic conditions prevalent through the spring of 1982 (a potentially devastating combination of deep recession, high unemployment, and high interest rates) and Reagan's shaky support in the polls (less than 50 percent approving his performance in all Gallup surveys during the first four months of 1982), portend a Republican disaster of major proportions in the fall. Remarkably, almost no one is seriously predicting anything of the kind. And it may indeed be a mistake to bet on enormous Republican losses—partly, we will argue, because they are not widely anticipated.

Analysis of both district-level and aggregate time-series data from postwar House elections supports the thesis that strategic political elites play a pivotal role in translating national conditions into election results and therefore in holding members of Congress collectively accountable for the government's performance. More high-quality candidates run when prospects appear to favor their party; they also win significantly more votes and victories than other candidates in equivalent circumstances. Thus, strategic career decisions both reflect and enhance national partisan tides. The electoral importance of strategic politicians has grown over time in tandem with the trend toward candidate-centered electoral politics. This has rendered the effects of national forces less automatic, more contingent, thus threatening the capacity of elections to enforce some degree of collective responsibility.

The question of how campaign spending affects election results remains open because the simultaneity problem has proven so intractable. Green and Krasno's (1988) recent attempt to solve the problem-and to demonstrate that marginal returns on spending are as great for incumbents as for challengers-again comes up short. A panel feature of the ABC NewslWashington Post Congressional District Poll conducted during the 1986 elections offers a fresh perspective on the question. Analysis of changes in voting intentions during the final six weeks of the campaign shows that, as the tainted OLS studies have invariably suggested, the amount spent by the challenger is far more important in accounting for voter's decisions than is the amount spent by the incumbent.

Common to both political folk wisdom and political science is the idea that the mid-term congressional election is a referendum on the performance of the current administration. The more popular a president and the more successful his policies, the better his party does at the midterm. The president's party almost invariably loses some congressional seats in off-year elections (since the Civil War the president's party has added House seats only once—in 1934—though it occasionally picks up Senate seats). But the extent of its losses varies widely (from one to 56 House seats in postwar midterms), depending, so the theory goes, on how the electorate rates the administration's performance. The 1982 congressional elections will, in this view, be a referendum on President Reagan's administration and in particular on his economic policies, which have been the focus of political attention since inauguration day. If this is true, then economic conditions prevalent through the spring of 1982 (a potentially devastating combination of deep recession, high unemployment, and high interest rates) and Reagan's shaky support in the polls (less than 50 percent approving his performance in all Gallup surveys during the first four months of 1982), portend a Republican disaster of major proportions in the fall. Remarkably, almost no one is seriously predicting anything of the kind. And it may indeed be a mistake to bet on enormous Republican losses—partly, we will argue, because they are not widely anticipated.