Anyone closely following American politics today will recognize the nationalized tenor of political dialogue and the behavior of the electorate. Candidates running for congressional office often echo the same themes embraced by presidential candidates in an attempt to earn the support of partisan voters. At the same time, individuals are increasingly voting straight party tickets at the polls and typically reward or punish elected representatives on the basis of their support of the president in a given electoral context. Despite this greater emphasis on nationalized politics, there is still room for local factors to matter under the right circumstances. This is the central argument that Charles Hunt makes in his provocative new book, Home Field Advantage. Hunt marshals data from the past two decades, along with additional historical data, to demonstrate that placed-based connections still matter to representatives and their voters even in a nationalized political context
The crux of Hunt’s argument is that legislators’ local roots in their constituencies exert a significant effect on their campaigns, election outcomes, and the nature of their interactions with their constituents. By local roots, Hunt refers to the representatives’ background in the district before they were first elected as opposed to anything they do once they are in office. He operationalizes these roots using a seven-point index that includes factors such as whether representatives were born in the district, attended high school or college there, possess local political experience, owned a local business, or were part of a local political dynasty (i.e., their parents or grandparents previously represented the district). Local roots, according to Hunt, are significantly more important than even affiliation with one of the two major parties. “For members who possess them, local roots help establish mutual trust and personal familiarity with their own constituents in ways that go beyond partisanship” (p. 7).
In challenging the literature emphasizing the nationalized tone of American politics, Hunt asserts that legislators are not interchangeable with respect to their partisan identification as we might otherwise expect. Instead, he maintains that “members’ local roots improve their electoral dynamics in the district by strengthening the representational relationship they share with their constituents” (p. 13). Put differently, very few legislators could step into another member’s district and successfully represent their constituents even if they shared the same partisan affiliation. What would be absent in that setting is the sense of authenticity and trust that representatives possess with their constituents because of their local connections: “For constituents, local roots run deeper than just a vague sense that a member has general qualifications to hold office anywhere; they instead signal that a member is uniquely qualified to represent the people who live here” (p. 20).
Hunt theorizes that possessing local roots in one’s congressional district is of increased electoral value for incumbents, and he carefully analyzes numerous sources of empirical data in support of his argument. For instance, he uses the seven-point local roots index to evaluate the personal, nonpartisan reputation of legislators in their districts and finds that those incumbents representing safe seats possess a score that is on average 14 points higher than members from all other types of seats. Hunt also considers the effects of local roots on both primary and general election outcomes and concludes that those members with stronger local ties to their districts consistently outperform other members with less established local roots at both stages of the electoral process. When considering behavior like campaign spending, Hunt finds that possessing local roots in a district decreases the amount of money raised from outside the congressional district by nearly half. Finally, his analysis of communication styles illustrates that members with deeper local roots rely less on partisan messaging and emphasize their own connections to the local community when interacting with their constituents.
The research in this book is theoretically rich, empirically rigorous, and appropriate for evaluating the specific questions at hand. Additionally, the subject matter speaks to the fundamentally critical issue of why some candidates perform better in House elections than others. For several decades now, researchers have grappled with a variety of important and related questions pertaining to this issue. For instance, why do incumbents who seek another term almost always get reelected? Why do candidates possessing prior elective experience typically perform better electorally than do amateurs? Why are those candidates who are already familiar with the voters more likely to win, all else being equal? Why do some legislators run ahead or behind presidential candidates in congressional races? In attempting to answer each of these central questions, Hunt notes that one should carefully consider a member’s local roots in addition to existing explanations in accounting for electoral success.
Hunt’s theoretical framework builds appropriately on prior congressional elections work but easily makes an independent contribution to the literature. A member’s local roots share notable qualities with well-known and established theoretical concepts such as a legislator’s “homestyle” or “personal vote” activities, especially in terms of how they help representatives establish connections with their constituents. That being said, Hunt points out that local roots are distinct from either of these concepts because they characterize who representatives are before they first get elected, instead of activities that they pursue once in office. Additionally, local roots are established in a community over the course of one’s life and cannot be applied to other districts, whereas a legislator’s homestyle or personal vote activities could very much be relevant elsewhere under the right circumstances.
Hunt does an excellent job of anticipating potential criticisms of his argument in each of the empirical chapters. For instance, one might wonder whether his argument about local roots is more compelling in rural districts, where voters are far less transient than in urban settings where there is greater voter mobility. Hunt carefully considers these factors in chapter 3 and shows that the degree of urbanness, population density, and mobility are indeed significant but do not undermine his broader theoretical argument. He also considers whether shifting district boundaries stemming from redistricting affect members’ ability to emphasize their local roots; he notes in chapter 9 that dramatic shifts in members’ districts can indeed affect their relationship with constituents, whereas minor changes at the margins typically do not. Hunt even addresses potential limitations with the use of his local roots index, which serves to bolster its potential effectiveness as a measure in future research that seeks to build on his findings.
Hunt uses the final chapter of his book to discuss several possible future directions in the study of local roots. Many of these ideas are noteworthy and represent exciting avenues for further study (e.g., how members interact with their constituents via campaign events, how legislators behave in Washington with respect to policy making, and what extensions of the argument to the US Senate might look like). Although the argument has many notable strengths as noted earlier, it might also be useful for either the author or future researchers to consider further two counterintuitive findings discussed in the book. First, Hunt notes in chapter 3 that Democrats tend to be more locally rooted than Republicans. This seems to challenge much of the conventional wisdom about the type of congressional districts that Democrats and Republicans represent in the House and is clearly worthy of additional research.
Likewise, and as discussed earlier, Hunt finds that members possessing deep roots in their district rely significantly less on outside funding compared to those lacking place-based connections. He also notes that representatives who raise more money locally typically end up spending less money to get reelected. This is an especially noteworthy finding because fundraising patterns during the past few decades demonstrate increasing patterns of monetary surrogacy from outside the district. This raises a fundamentally important question: If local connections are of such value for members in the House, why then are we seeing increasing rates of monetary surrogacy over time? Could this be a function of declining local roots in Congress because individuals today are less likely to run in areas where they grew up or went to school? Or is this simply a function of a significant decline in the number of competitive seats in the House, which encourages rich donors to funnel as much money as possible to a limited number of races? Further attention to these types of questions will enrich our understanding of the representational connection with members and will build on this important new book’s rich insights.
