The Electorate, the Campaign, and the Office: A Unified Approach to Senate and House Elections | 
| Author: Paul Gronke
Publisher: University of Michigan Press
Category: Book
List Price: $60.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 6163900
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 216
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.9 x 1
ISBN: 0472111310
Dewey Decimal Number: 324.973092
EAN: 9780472111312
ASIN: 0472111310
Publication Date: August 3, 2000
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Product Description
Voters simultaneously choose among candidates running for different offices, with different terms, and occupying different places in the Constitutional order. Conventional wisdom holds that these overlapping institutional differences make comparative electoral research difficult, if not impossible. Paul Gronke's path-breaking study compares electoral contexts, campaigns, and voter decision-making in House and Senate elections. Gronke's book offers new insights into how differences--and similarities--across offices structure American elections.
Congressional elections research holds that Senate races are more competitive than House contests because states are more heterogeneous, or because candidates are more prominent and raise more money, or because voters have fundamentally different expectations. Because House and Senate contests are seldom compared, we have little empirical evidence to test the various hypotheses about how voters make choices for different offices. Gronke finds that the similarities between House and Senate elections are much greater than previously thought and that voters make their decisions in both races on the same bases.
Gronke first looks at differences in congressional districts and states, showing that context does not really help us understand why Senate elections feature better candidates, higher spending, and closer outcomes. Next, he turns to campaigns. Surprisingly, over a turbulent twenty-year period, House and Senate candidacies have retained the same competitive dynamics.
Gronke also considers voting behavior in House and Senate elections. Focusing on the 1988 and 1990 elections, he argues that voters do not distinguish between institutions, applying fundamentally the same decision rule, regardless of the office being contested. Gronke closes by considering the implications of his results for the way we relate settings, electoral dynamics, and institutional arrangements.
This book will appeal to those interested in Congress, political campaigning, and voting.
Paul Gronke is Associate Professor of Political Science at Reed College.
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Author Review August 23, 2000
6 out of 8 found this review helpful
Ever since the founding of our country, American scholars and political observers have commented on the bicameral experiment. The U.S. House and Senate share many constitutional responsibilities, but in other ways (district size, election cycle, size of the chamber), they are very different. But do we think that voters see these same differences when they walk in to the voting booth? Gronke's research show, in general, that the answer is "No." Voters apply a similar set of standards to American legislative candidates, regardless of the office being contested.Gronke's study compares campaigning and voting behavior in the U.S. House and Senate over a two decade period, from 1980 through 1996. He covers such varied topics as media markets, campaign spending, candidate characteristics, voter evaluations of the House and Senate, and models of electoral choice. By use of a rich archive of contextual, campaign, and survey data collected over two decades, Gronke dismisses many of the conventional accounts of House and Senate differences. Instead, Gronke shows that common elements dominate. Except for the higher profile and higher spending rates in Senate races, U.S. House and Senate elections are marked less by differences than they are by similarities. Paul Gronke's path-breaking study compares electoral contexts, campaigns, and voter decision-making in House and Senate elections. Gronke's book offers new insights into how differences - and similarities - across the U.S. House and Senate help us understand American elections, showing that congressional elections are united more by common elements than they are separated by an institutional gulf Ross Baker calls Gronke's book "audacious" and "fresh", written with a "felicity of expression."
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