January 31, 2002

Two most important things about Congressional elections:

1. Incumbents win often, and generally by large margins. The House is almost a lifetime job, few die, none retire.

2. Incumbency advantages are stronger in the House. A political career in the Senate is not as likely.

93% of House members win re-election.

In 1994, the Republicans picked up 50 Seats and became the majority party.

In 1986, 1988, and 2000, close to 99% won re-election.

The only real way to lose is to get caught up in a scandal.

A seat is considered “safe” is your last election was won with more than 55% of the vote.

1986- 89% won with 55% +

1994- 65% had safe seats

1996- 75%

Today- 85%

Senate races are closer, it is also harder for Senators to develop a close bond with their constituents.

House members are more secure because they can adapt a “homestyle.”

Homestyle refers to how a successful politican creats a bond and makes his district feel he’s just like them.

Representation: To behave like you would behave, “to make present again.”

Constituents aren’t looking at big issues. In newsletters you notice non-contraversial issues such as building parks or helping cancer research, these are affectionlate known as “motherhood and apple pie” issues. You would never see the issues of abortion or school prayer in a newsletter.

To creat a homestyle, members may hand out the Agricultural Yearbook, or Baby Books. Their constituents will remember their name when they receive these pieces of litterature.

In 1994, Members sent out 43 million pieces of mail to their constituents.

Today- 600 million pieces!

Congressman also give out American Flags, especially recently.

1/3 of Sentate staff and 44% of House staff work in the member’s district.

February 5, 2002

Average Member has between 21 and 22 staff members. Some Senate offices have up to 100 staff members.

There are always members who vote against their party, such as Jim Trafficant. He votes against the party 81% of the time and is called an independent democrat. He always stands up for the little guy.

Connie Morella often votes democratic as well even though she is Republican.

In Parliament and outside the U.S., people don’t run on their own, only with a party, so voters do not vote for a party, just a candidate.

February 7, 2002

Strategies to get well liked:

Frequent contact and non-contraversial work.

It is important to come home often so that your constituents don’t think you’ve “gone washington.”

Convince voters you’re connected, visit and talk to people often.

Keep the issues only dealing with “motherhood and apple pie.”

Voters can usually recognize but not recall their member’s name.

If you can pick out the right name in a list, thats recognition.

92% can recognize an incumbent

52% can recognize a challenger.

Members have easier time getting the word out about who they are as do Quality Challengers.

Quality Challengers: athletes, actors, former elected officials. The key is high name recognition.

There are 4 types of constituencies:

Geographic: all of the voters in the district, where you need to be most careful; non-partisan.

Re-election: these people always vote for you, but they require the most TLC, they support you the most but also need attention.

Primary: most loyal supports who will not leave you.

Personal: family and friends

February 12, 2002

Anthony Downs’ spatial model

Shows you want to stay in the middle, not too far right, not too far left.

If you have 5 issues, and 90% are with you on every issue, and 10% are against you on every issue. In the end, you will have alienated 50% of your voters.

Abortion 90% 10%

School Prayer 90 10

Gun Control 90 10

Death Penalty 90 10

Affirmative Action 90 10

50% of voters against you!

February 14, 2002

Elections were once party centered, now they are candidate centered as of the 1970’s.

Most Congressional leaders, after they become leaders, have very close races because they need to spend more of their time in DC away from their district.

Policy is the best weapon a challenger has, however there are other things that also help Incumbents:

Party

Homestyle

Name Identification

Challenger quality

Money

Redistricting

February 19, 2002

Campaign Finance

Soft Money Regulations:

No more than $5000 per candidate from a Corporation in one election.

No more than $1000 per candidate from an Individual in one election.

Soft Money is:

Party building

In-kind services

Issue ads

Independent expeditures

Candidate expenditures

You can spend as much of your own money as you want!

Bundling: one campaign committee in charge of multiple funds such as National Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, National Republican Congressional Campaing Committee.

February 21, 2002

Who gets money and who spends what?

1988 v. 1998

1988- Incumbents raised 3.5 times more than challengers

1998- 3 times more

Republicans raise more money than Democrats

Republican challengers raise more money than Democratic Challengers

Republican open seats raise more than Democratic open seats

Republican Incumbents have better chances against Democratic Challengers

The majority party also has advantages

Big campaign contributions geta cess to the candidate

Investors want to make good worthwhile investment in a candidate, will not support a loser

The big money follows the campaigns strategy

Senate races are far more expensive than House races

Average Republican Incumbent: 4.9 Million

Average Democratic Incumbent: 4.4 Million

Senate Challengers don’t do too bad, about 2 million.

Median Expenditure Levels

Candidates receiving more than…

100,000 200,000 400,000

Democratic Challenger 1998 42% 29% 19%

Republican Challenger 1998 44% 39% 23%

Democratic Open Seat 88% 88% 74%

Republican Open Seat 81% 78% 75%

Spend as much as you can, however, with incumbents, the more they spend, the worse they do!

Protective Spending- the more you raise the more you scare off quality challengers

Republican incumbents who lost raised more than the Democratic incumbents who lost

Republican Challengers who won raised 823,000

Democratic Challengers who won raised 1,226,000

By the 1990’s Challengers need to raise $1 million or more.

By 1988, Incumbents would raise around 100,000

Challengers would raise 32%, now its 42%

Where does the money come from?

PACs

Parties

Individuals

House: Party is mostly soft money, so they contribute very litle hard money but they give a lot of in kind donations.

Big PACs:

Business/ Corporate and Trade

Labor

Non-connected, Women’s Campaign Fund- these are ideological, do not contribute a large portion of candidate’s spending usually.

EMILY’s List: Early Money is Like Yeast (it makes the dough rise) gives money to pro-choice candidates very early in the campaign because you need to get your name out there.

Different PAC’s rise up in different years. Its easer to get money when your cause is threatened.

Labor- one fundamental promise: give to Democrats! 2/3 to incumbents, 1/3 to democratic challengers in close races.

The bulk of the money comes from Business, big business wants to give to Republicans but they know that if they give to Republican challengers, they could get shut out. Therefore they actually have to deal with whoever is in power.

Business has a priority list when donating:

Republican Incumbents first, Democratic Challengers last!

Every now and then Business feels like its time to give to Republican Challengers.

McCain-Feingold would abolish soft money for political parties

Single biggest beneficiary of this would be incumbents because they would not need soft money and challengers would have a harder time raising money.

February 26, 2002

Incumbent Senators don’t win re-election as often as incumbent House members.

However, 78% of Incumbent Senators do win again.

Constituency Differences have a lot to do with this.

Homogeneous: more likely to be House district, small states like Idaho or Hawaii.

Heterogeneous District: Most states, especially larger ones like California or New York. Senators must run through out the whole state and the more heterogeneous, the harder it is to run a campaign.

It’s very hard to run in the inner cities of NY as well as upstate.

California is probably the most difficult place to represent in the world! Every political movement starts there, Republicans have moved closer to the right, Liberals have moved closer to the left.

It’s a question of ideology v. casework

Senators say the whole point of being a senator is to work on issues. Senators see themselves as future presidents and policy leaders.

Senators need to:

Focus on issues, not baby books

Get on TV, other journalists watch Sunday morning TV. They report on how the Senators appear during an interview and dub them the “hot new candidate.”

When Senators do this, it can be dangerous because youre not in DC, but you’re in your state either. Senators can lose if they don’t pay attention to their district while running for office. Their ideology can hurt them as well.

What people know is what they get in the media and in the mail. You can’t possibly meet all of California’s 26, 080, 080 residents.

You also cannot control your message on TV, so members must be careful.

Incumbents love local weekly papers because they need to fill space with something, and they will print for free.

There is a lack of clear connection between homestyle and washington style.

Term length is a big issue

House term- 2 years, campaigning never ends because you’re always up for re-election.
Senate term- 6 years, most go into hibernation for 4 years! The first two years is spent adjusting and working on legislation, next two years they think about running again, the last two years are spent campaigning.

2/3 of Senate Races are hard fought, small margins with quality challengers.

1/3 of Senate Races are Low Key, one gets 50% of the vote, usually a referendum on the incumbent.

Split States include:

Heterogeneous and Big: Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania.

One party states:

Maryland, Massachussettes, Hawaii, Idaho.