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What Happens When Extremists Win Primaries?

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  • HALL, ANDREW B.

Abstract

This article studies the interplay of U.S. primary and general elections. I examine how the nomination of an extremist changes general-election outcomes and legislative behavior in the U.S. House, 1980–2010, using a regression discontinuity design in primary elections. When an extremist—as measured by primary-election campaign receipt patterns—wins a “coin-flip” election over a more moderate candidate, the party’s general-election vote share decreases on average by approximately 9–13 percentage points, and the probability that the party wins the seat decreases by 35–54 percentage points. This electoral penalty is so large that nominating the more extreme primary candidate causes the district’s subsequent roll-call representation to reverse, on average, becoming more liberal when an extreme Republican is nominated and more conservative when an extreme Democrat is nominated. Overall, the findings show how general-election voters act as a moderating filter in response to primary nominations.

Suggested Citation

  • Hall, Andrew B., 2015. "What Happens When Extremists Win Primaries?," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 109(1), pages 18-42, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:109:y:2015:i:01:p:18-42_00
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    Cited by:

    1. Cintolesi, Andrea, 2022. "Political polarization and primary elections," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 596-617.
    2. Shino Takayama & Yuki Tamura & Terence Yeo, 2019. "Primaries, Strategic Voters and Heterogenous Valences," Discussion Papers Series 605, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    3. Peter Buisseret & Richard Van Weelden, 2020. "Crashing the Party? Elites, Outsiders, and Elections," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(2), pages 356-370, April.
    4. Stommes, Drew & Aronow, P. M. & Sävje, Fredrik, 2023. "On the Reliability of Published Findings Using the Regression Discontinuity Design in Political Science," I4R Discussion Paper Series 22, The Institute for Replication (I4R).
    5. Jordan Kujala, 2020. "Donors, Primary Elections, and Polarization in the United States," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(3), pages 587-602, July.
    6. Kikuta,Kyosuke, 2023. "More Equality for Women Does Mean Less War: Descriptive Representation, Legislative Votes, and International Conflict," IDE Discussion Papers 904, Institute of Developing Economies, Japan External Trade Organization(JETRO).
    7. Anastasopoulos, Lefteris, 2016. "Estimating the gender penalty in House of Representative elections using a regression discontinuity design," MPRA Paper 71297, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Robert Chuchro & Kyle D'Souza & Darren Mei, 2019. "Dancing with Donald: Polarity in the 2016 Presidential Election," Papers 1901.07542, arXiv.org.
    9. Das, Upasak & Singhal, Karan, 2023. "Solving it correctly: Prevalence and persistence of gender gap in basic mathematics in rural India," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    10. Davide Cipullo, 2021. "Gender Gaps in Political Careers: Evidence from Competitive Elections," CESifo Working Paper Series 9075, CESifo.
    11. Leandro De Magalhaes & Salomo Hirvonen, 2021. "A second chance elsewhere. Re-running for parliament after a close race defeat: UK vs US," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 21/744, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    12. McMurray, Joseph, 2022. "Polarization and pandering in common-interest elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 133(C), pages 150-161.
    13. Jamie L. Carson & Ryan D. Williamson, 2018. "Candidate ideology and electoral success in congressional elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 176(1), pages 175-192, July.
    14. Livio Di Lonardo, 2017. "Valence uncertainty and the nature of the candidate pool in elections," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(2), pages 327-350, April.
    15. Raghul S. Venkatesh, 2020. "Political activism and polarization," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 22(5), pages 1530-1558, September.

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