Comments on: Partisan Polarization and Congressional Accountability in House Elections

By: KMA Unregistered

Thu, 17 Jun 2010 03:38:16 +0000

Might the fact that more people are considering themselves “independent” have some bearing on these results? Granted, “independents” function more like weak partisan (according to Keith et al.), but maybe because more people are identifying as “independent” means that they are are likely to hold an individual member of Congress accountable for the overall failures of Congress? Even with polarization, it stands to reason that MCs will at least attempt to win support from some portion of them (especially if one’s “advantage” is closer to 62% instead of 70%); candidates hoping to unseat MCs will be mindful of the percentage of voters who are “independent” or “undecided” and will try to win them over in much the same way as current presidential candidates gravitate towards the center.

By: A.B. The post author

Wed, 26 May 2010 15:43:38 +0000

Good point. I think you're referring to Jacobson's "the marginals never vanished." So maybe margins rose sharply in the 60s and 70s (when polarization was low) without actually changing turnover, and now margins are falling again (with rising polarization), but turnover rates remain unchanged.

By: Hans Unregistered

Wed, 26 May 2010 05:24:39 +0000

Haven’t read the article yet, but isn’t there a difference between winning an election and percentage of the vote? Isn’t what he’s finding essential a reversing trend of vanishing marginals? So while certain effects are increasing incumbency advantage, this is a dampening effect? Thus while partisanship has increased the ability of the public to assign blame to the majority party, other increasing incumbency advantage factors have mitigated their effect.