Are All Presidents Created Equal? Presidential Powers and the Shadow of Presidential Elections

Presidential elections with few candidates held in temporal proximity to legislative elections are believed to promote the nationalization and consolidation of the legislative party system. However, contrary to the existing literature, we argue here that the shadow presidential elections cast over legislative elections is contingent upon the relative powers of the president vis-à-vis the legislature. Specifically, we find that proximate presidential elections with few presidential candidates only promote the nationalization and consolidation of the legislative party system when the president is neither very weak nor very powerful. We also find that proximate presidential elections with many presidential candidates only promote the denationalization and fragmentation of the legislative party system when the president is at least reasonably