Research on U.S. House elections has placed growing emphasis on the partisanship of the districts as an explanation for weak competition. Supporters of this account point to the growing number of districts whose underlying partisan complexion places them out of reach of one party, as well as to...

While there is a strong scholarly consensus that race continues to play a central role in American politics, research on the effects of the race of candidates on electoral behavior have been decidedly mixed. Using American National Election Studies data and a non-linear systems of equations...

Existing research has demonstrated the significant priming effects that exposure to mass media can have on voters. The issue content of campaign communications and advertisements has been shown to influence both the types of issues that voters use when evaluating candidates, and the weight...

The motivation for this work is examine federal election competitiveness over time at both the national and state level. At the national level we seek a means to quantify competitiveness in a way that allows comparison between presidential elections and majority control of Congress. At the state...

Politicians’ behavioral changes as an election nears have typically been attributed to the incentive effects of an election. I document that behavioral changes can occur even for unelected judges. Using data from 1925-2002 on U.S. appellate judges, who are appointed for life, I find that just...