The lasting effect of competitive elections on congressional approval: Evidence from the 2010 and 2011 Cooperative Congressional Election Study

2013 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 779-782
Author(s):  
Heather K. Evans
Keyword(s):  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Lasting Effect

scholarly journals Changes in perceptions of media bias

2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 205316802098744
Author(s):  
Kirby Goidel ◽  
Nicholas T. Davis ◽  
Spencer Goidel
Keyword(s):  
Attitude Change ◽  
Media Bias ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Change Perceptions ◽  
Individual Perceptions ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
The Media

In this paper, we utilize a module from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study to explore how individual perceptions of media bias changed over the course of the 2016 presidential campaign. While previous literature has documented the role of partisan affiliation in perceptions of bias, we know considerably less about how these perceptions change during a presidential election. Consistent with existing theories of attitude change, perceptions of bias polarize with strong Democrats moving toward believing the media were biased against Hillary Clinton (and in favor of Donald Trump) and independent-leaning Republicans moving toward believing the media were biased against Donald Trump. At the end of the 2016 election, more individuals believed the media were biased against their side. These effects were moderated by how much attention individuals paid to the campaign.

Descriptive Representation and Black Political Involvement

Gaining Voice ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 97-122
Author(s):  
Christopher J. Clark ◽  
Ray Block
Keyword(s):  
African Americans ◽  
Study Data ◽  
Representative Democracy ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Involvement ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Political Empowerment ◽  
Black Representation ◽  
The Us

A healthy representative democracy requires that citizens be politically involved, and it is especially important to consider the political involvement of groups that are marginalized, such as African Americans. Building on the political empowerment hypothesis, the chapter argues that an increased black seat share and black representation ratio should be associated with increased black political involvement. Using 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Study data, the chapter describes how in states with an increased black seat share in the legislature blacks are more likely to be highly interested in politics and are more likely to vote. In states with a higher black representation ratio, blacks are more inclined to persuade others to vote. Black representation in the US House does not increase black political involvement, despite being the focus of many scholarly works of political empowerment.

scholarly journals Fear, Institutionalized Racism, and Empathy: The Underlying Dimensions of Whites’ Racial Attitudes

2020 ◽  
Vol 53 (4) ◽  
pp. 639-645 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher D. DeSante ◽  
Candis Watts Smith
Keyword(s):  
Racial Attitudes ◽  
Emotional Reactions ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Institutionalized Racism ◽  
The Past ◽  
Cognitive Beliefs ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACTFor nearly 75 years, scholars of American public opinion have sought to measure whites’ attitudes toward blacks: social scientists have invented and revised ways to measure what we could refer to as “racial prejudice.” With each revision, scholars who believe they have captured new forms of racial animus are met with opposition from those who believe that old-fashioned anti-black affect is a thing of the past. We directly answer these claims by collecting a surfeit of attitudinal measures to simultaneously estimate the relationship between cognitive beliefs about the racial status quo and emotional reactions to racism. First, we uncover that two higher-order dimensions undergird whites’ racial attitudes. Second, we validate a four-item version of our new battery using the 2016 Cooperative Congressional Election Study.

The Elusive Likely Voter

2019 ◽  
Vol 83 (4) ◽  
pp. 782-804
Author(s):  
Anthony Rentsch ◽  
Brian F Schaffner ◽  
Justin H Gross
Keyword(s):  
Black Box ◽  
Demographic Variables ◽  
Voter Model ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Negligible Amount ◽  
Number Of Factors ◽  
Voter Models

Abstract Political commentators have offered evidence that the “polling misses” of 2016 were caused by a number of factors. This project focuses on one explanation: that likely-voter models—tools used by preelection pollsters to predict which survey respondents are most likely to make up the electorate and, thus, whose responses should be used to calculate election predictions—were flawed. While models employed by different pollsters vary widely, it is difficult to systematically study them because they are often considered part of pollsters’ methodological black box. In this study, we use Cooperative Congressional Election Study surveys since 2008 to build a probabilistic likely-voter model that takes into account not only the stated intentions of respondents to vote, but also other demographic variables that are consistently strong predictors of both turnout and overreporting. This model, which we term the Perry-Gallup and Demographics (PGaD) approach, shows that the bias and error created by likely-voter models can be reduced to a negligible amount. This likely-voter approach uses variables that pollsters already collect for weighting purposes and thus should be relatively easy to implement in future elections.

Missing Voices

2011 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 391-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
James S. Krueger ◽  
Francisco I. Pedraza
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Military Service ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Service Members ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Us Military ◽  
Military Service Members ◽  
War In Iraq

Public opinion studies on war attitudes say little about civilians who are related to military service members. The authors argue that military “service-connected” individuals are missing voices in the research that examines public support for war. Using over 50,000 observations from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, the authors estimate attitudes toward the war in Iraq, the war in Afghanistan, and the use of US military troops in general. The authors find that service-connected civilians express greater support for war and the use of troops than civilians without such a connection. This study discusses the implications of these findings for theoretical advancements in the literature addressing war attitudes and the conceptualization of the “civil–military gap.”

Immigrant Resentment and Voter Fraud Beliefs in the U.S. Electorate

2017 ◽  
Vol 46 (3) ◽  
pp. 402-433 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adriano Udani ◽  
David C. Kimball
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Strong Predictor ◽  
The United States ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Public Beliefs ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
American National Election Study ◽  
Immigration Politics ◽  
Voter Fraud

Public beliefs about the frequency of voter fraud are frequently cited to support restrictive voting laws in the United States. However, some sources of public beliefs about voter fraud have received little attention. We identify two conditions that combine to make anti-immigrant attitudes a strong predictor of voter fraud beliefs. First, the recent growth and dispersion of the immigrant population makes immigration a salient consideration for many Americans. Second, an immigrant threat narrative in political discourse linking immigration to crime and political dysfunction has been extended to the voting domain. Using new data from a survey module in the 2014 Cooperative Congressional Election Study and the 2012 American National Election Study, we show that immigrant resentment is strongly associated with voter fraud beliefs. Widespread hostility toward immigrants helps nourish public beliefs about voter fraud and support for voting restrictions in the United States. The conditions generating this relationship in public opinion likely exist in other nations roiled by immigration politics. The topic of fraudulent electoral practices will likely continue to provoke voters to call to mind groups that are politically constructed as “un-American.”

How Gender Conditions the Way Citizens Evaluate and Engage with Their Representatives

2017 ◽  
Vol 71 (1) ◽  
pp. 46-58 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mia Costa ◽  
Brian F. Schaffner
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Strong Evidence ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
Conventional Wisdom ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Panel Survey ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Study Panel ◽  
Rate Female

Scholars argue that women’s presence in politics enhances symbolic representation, such as positive evaluations of one’s representative and increased political engagement. However, there is little empirical evidence of these symbolic benefits from descriptive representation. With data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study panel survey, we examine how a change in the gender of a representative affects individuals’ perceptions of that representative and likelihood to contact them. In general, we find that women express more positive evaluations of female representatives than male representatives, yet they are also less likely to contact female representatives. By contrast, the effect of an elected official’s gender does not significantly affect how men evaluate or engage with that official. However, we also show that partisanship conditions these effects, perhaps due to the fact that gender stereotypes operate differently for Democrats than Republicans. For example, women rate female Republican legislators more positively than they do male Republican legislators, but neither women nor men rate Democratic legislators differently based on their gender. The findings provide strong evidence that gender matters when it comes to representation, but contrary to some conventional wisdom, female elected officials may actually enjoy some advantages in terms of their standing among constituents.

No Republican, No Vote: Undervoting and Consequences of the Top-Two Primary System

2019 ◽  
Vol 20 (3) ◽  
pp. 292-312 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin A. Fisk
Keyword(s):  
General Election ◽  
Primary System ◽  
Congressional Election ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
Election Study ◽  
Opting Out ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Senate Election ◽  
Using Data ◽  
New System

Washington and California adopted the Top-Two Primary in 2008 and 2012, respectively. Under this new system, all candidates regardless of party affiliation run against each other, narrowing the field down to the top two for the general election. In some jurisdictions, the general election features two candidates from the same party. Ten percent of California voters chose not to vote in the 2016 U.S. Senate election which featured two Democrats. Using data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (2012–2016), I find that among those who vote in the national November elections, orphans, or voters without a copartisan candidate on the ballot are more likely to undervote, opting out of voting in their congressional race. Levels of undervoting are nearly 20 percentage points higher for orphaned voters compared to non-orphaned voters. Additionally, voters who abstain perceive more ideological distance between themselves and the candidates compared to voters who cast a vote. These findings support a multi-step framework for vote decisions in same-party matchups: voters are more likely to undervote if they are unable to vote for a candidate from their party (partisan model), but all voters are more likely to vote for a candidate when they perceive ideological proximity (ideological model).

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