Low-turnout runoff elections; skepticism about the "balancing" argument
Nolan McCarty writes:
Saxby Chambliss won reelection in the Georgia Senate run-off by a somewhat surprising margin 57-43% margin over Democrat Jim Martin. . . . there seems to be an emerging pattern of the newly elected president’s party losing in run-off elections. Of course, the closest parallel was in Georgia in 1992 when republican Paul Coverdell beat incumbent Democrat Wyche Fowler following Bill Clinton’s presidential victory. . . . Political scientists and economists such as Alberto Alesina, Howard Rosenthal, and Mo Fiorina have offered a “balancing” explanation as to why the new president’s party performs poorly in these special elections and in midterm elections generally. The basic idea is that most voters are more ideological moderate than the two parties and therefore would like to balance them through divided government. . . . in a special or midterm election, voters have a clear opportunity to promote balance by voting against the president’s party.
Isn’t there a simpler explanation? Runoff elections generally have lower turnout than general elections (especially if the general election has the president on the ballot). Lower-turnout elections generally favor Republicans and conservatives. Chambliss won a plurality in the primary election, then you go to a lower-turnout runoff and you’d expect him to do even better, which he did. (Similarly for Republican candidate Coverdell in 1992.)
Is “balancing” really needed to explain this at all?
P.S. I agree with McCarty that the whole 60 votes thing has been overemphasized. Realistically there’s a limit to how many times the minority will want to filibuster against legislation that is popular enough to be passed by a majority in the House and Senate.
Comments
American’s have a very strong history of balancing the political scales. I think that is part of it.
As for the 60 votes thing, it has definitely been over blown. There are still many VERY moderate Republicans who will not vote party line - and never did (although a couple of them are on their way out). Either way, Republicans do not have the same history of obstruction as the Democrats. We have yet to see if the Republican leadership decides to filibuster every chance they get as the Democrats did to Bush. Even if they wanted to, they won’t be able to imo.
Posted by: David | December 14, 2008 02:37 PM
I think the balancing thing is hard to swallow. I hear it all the time, but never have I seen it used to explain an election result that couldn’t have ben explained more easily and credibly by something else (so, I agree with Andrew).
As for David’s comment, I wonder if the “history of balancing” has more to do with parties and coalitions than it does individual voter decision-making. Show me a voter whose decision involves the thought, “gee, I voted X last time and they won. I better vote Y this time,” and you win. But I’ve never, ever heard anyone say that.
Posted by: Joel | December 14, 2008 05:08 PM
It’s definitely turnout. Look at the recent House election where Republican Joseph Cao won in overwhelmingly Democratic New Orleans. Why? Only 66,000 votes - 100k fewer than voted in November.
Posted by: King Politics | December 14, 2008 07:32 PM
Also, wasn’t the Georgia senate a plurality because of the Libertarian candidate getting like 3% of the vote. that would put Chambliss to about 52-53%. So about half the increase could be do to the removal of the non-major party candidates.
Also, David, I don’t know to whom you are referring, but the Democrats in the US I live in did not filibuster Bush every chance they got. IIRC they didn’t even filibuster Bush more than a typical two-term president is filibustered
Posted by: BillCinSD | December 15, 2008 08:06 PM
To comment on my last comment, Nate Silver (at fivethirtyeight.com) has just published some research into this issue
“The number of cloture votes skyrocketed in the 110th Congress following the Democratic takeover of the Senate and Reid’s assumption of the majority leader position. The Senate voted on 112 cloture motions in the 110th, exactly double the number (56) of cloture votes in the 109th Congress, and two-and-a-half times as many as the average number of cloture votes (44) over the previous nine Congresses. Of these cloture motions, 51 were rejected (meaning that opponents of a bill succeeded in blocking an up-or-down vote) and 61 were passed.”
so basically, the Republicans of the last Congress are the kings of filibuster, and the previous Congress in which the Republicans were in control, Dem filibusters were below average
Posted by: BillCinSD | December 15, 2008 09:09 PM