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Strategy and Choice in the 1982 Congressional Elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2022

Gary C. Jacobson  and
Samuel Kernell
Gary C. Jacobson
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
Samuel Kernell
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
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Extract

Common to both political folk wisdom and political science is the idea that the mid-term congressional election is a referendum on the performance of the current administration. The more popular a president and the more successful his policies, the better his party does at the midterm. The president's party almost invariably loses some congressional seats in off-year elections (since the Civil War the president's party has added House seats only once—in 1934—though it occasionally picks up Senate seats). But the extent of its losses varies widely (from one to 56 House seats in postwar midterms), depending, so the theory goes, on how the electorate rates the administration's performance.

The 1982 congressional elections will, in this view, be a referendum on President Reagan's administration and in particular on his economic policies, which have been the focus of political attention since inauguration day. If this is true, then economic conditions prevalent through the spring of 1982 (a potentially devastating combination of deep recession, high unemployment, and high interest rates) and Reagan's shaky support in the polls (less than 50 percent approving his performance in all Gallup surveys during the first four months of 1982), portend a Republican disaster of major proportions in the fall.

Remarkably, almost no one is seriously predicting anything of the kind. And it may indeed be a mistake to bet on enormous Republican losses—partly, we will argue, because they are not widely anticipated.

Type
The 1982 Congressional Elections
Information
PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 15 , Issue 3 , Summer 1982 , pp. 423 - 430
Copyright
Copyright © The American Political Science Association 1982

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References

1 Our discussion deals almost exclusively with House elections; although the basic arguments should apply to Senate elections as well, the special characteristics of Senate elections, structural and otherwise, make it impossible to perform the kind of systematic analysis we offer here. In 1982, for example, 19 of the Senate seats up for election are held by Democrats, only 13 by Republicans (and one by an independent), even though Republicans hold a majority of Senate seats. This will of course make it more difficult for Democrats to gain Senate seats quite independent of national forces.

2 Kramer, Gerald H., “Short-Term Fluctuations in U.S. Voting Behavior,” American Political Science Review 65 (1971): 131–43CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tufte, Edward R., “Determinants of the Outcomes of Mid-term Congressional Elections,” American Political Science Review 69 (1975): 816–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Tufte, , Political Control of the Economy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Arcelus, Francisco and Meltzer, Allan H., “The Effects of Aggregate Economic Variables on Congressional Elections,” American Political Science Review 69 (1975): 1232–39CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bloom, Howard S. and Price, H. Douglas, “Voter Response to Short-Run Economic Conditions: The Asymmetric Effect of Prosperity and Recession,” American Political Science Review 69 (1975): 1240–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

3 Key, V. O. Jr., Politics, Parties, and Pressure Groups, 5th ed. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1964), p. 567 Google Scholar.

4 See Jacobson, Gary C. and Kernell, Samuel, Strategy and Choice in Congressional Elections (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1981)Google Scholar, for a full review of these findings.

5 Tufte, , Political Control of the Economy, pp. 106–115 Google Scholar.

6 Lower inflation has probably kept real income from falling despite high unemployment and other components of the recession. The income tax cut and cost-of-living increase for social security recipients on July 1 will help add to real income later in the year, so it is reasonable to expect some overall growth in per capita income between 1981 and 1982.

7 Abramson, Rudy and Green, Larry, “Reagan's Long Coattails May Lead Fellow Republicans on a Bumpy Ride.” Los Angeles Times, January 19, 1982, p. 9 Google Scholar.

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12 Clymer, Adam, “GOP Worried About Impact of Job Figures,” New York Times, January 15, 1982, p. 9 Google Scholar.

13 Clymer, Adam, “Those Who Recruit Candidates Say the Parties are Running About Even,” New York Times, March 8, 1982, p. 4 Google Scholar.

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