Using data on non-presidential-year elections for governor and U.S. Senators in eight southern states over the period 1922– 1990, we provide a rational-choice-inspired model of the factors that should be expected to affect the relative levels of turnout in primaries as compared to general...

Interest groups ratings have long been used by social scientists to distinguish between liberal and conservative members of Congress. It is also well known that ratings by different groups are highly correlated with one another. Here, rather than focusing on the similarities between such...