Television and the Incumbency Advantage in U.S. Elections

نویسندگان

  • Stephen Ansolabehere
  • Erik C. Snowberg
چکیده

We use the structure of media markets within states and across state boundaries to study the relationship between television and electoral competition. Specifically, we compare incumbent vote margins in media markets where the content originates in the same state as the media consumers versus those where the content originates out-of-state. This contrast provides a clear test of whether television coverage correlates with the incumbency advantage. We study Senate and Gubernatorial races from the 1950s through the 1990s. We find that the effect of TV is small, directionally indeterminate, and statistically insignificant.

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

The Incumbent in the Living Room: The Rise of Television and the Incumbency Advantage in U.S. House Elections

This study shows that the growth of television contributed to the rise in the incumbency advantage in U.S. House elections during the 1960s. Incumbents received positive coverage throughout their term and were generally more newsworthy and better funded than their challengers during the campaign. Less-educated voters, for whom television presented a new, less demanding source of news, were most...

متن کامل

The Incumbency Advantage in U.S. Primary Elections1

Using a new data set, we estimate the magnitude of the incumbency advantage in direct primary elections between 1910 to 2000. We ̄nd that the incumbency advantage, as estimated by the sophomore surge, was above 5 percentage points in primary elections even in the ̄rst decades of the twentieth century. The sophomore surge in primary elections grew to approximately 15 percentage points by the end...

متن کامل

Voting for Parties or for Candidates: Do Electoral Institutions Make a Difference?

Little is known about how electoral institutions systematically affect the level of incumbency advantage in legislative elections. In this paper, I analyze the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) data to put the U.S. case in a comparative context and explore how electoral institutions aid or preclude incumbents from gaining an advantage. In particular, I study whether electoral system...

متن کامل

Voting Cues and the Incumbency Advantage: a Critical Test1

A possible explanation for the rise of the incumbency advantage in U.S. elections asserts that party and incumbency are close informational substitutes. With the declining psychological importance of party, voters attached themselves to the next available piece of information { incumbency. A critical test of this idea arises in the peculiar circumstances of Minnesota state legislative elections...

متن کامل

Party and Incumbency Cues in Voting: Are They Substitutes?1

A possible explanation for the rise of the incumbency advantage in U.S. elections asserts that party and incumbency are close informational substitutes. A common claim in the literature is that as the salience of partisan cues decreased, voters attached themselves to the next available piece of information – incumbency. Minnesota state legislative elections provides a unique setting for testing...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

عنوان ژورنال:

دوره   شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2005