The Not-So-Simple Calculus of Winning: Potential U.S. House Candidates’ Nomination and General Election Chances

The Not-So-Simple Calculus of Winning: Potential U.S. House Candidates’ Nomination and General Election Chances We argue that as the individual qualities of potential House candidates (PCs) improve, their chances in both the nomination and general election chances become stronger. However the same is not true for two key characteristics of the district context in which potential candidates might run: the party of the PC in relation to the incumbent, and the partisan makeup of the district. As the partisanship of the district increasingly favors potential candidates, their chances of winning the general election go up, but their chances of winning their party’s nomination go down. Likewise, potential candidates in the same party as the incumbent have much lower chances of winning the nomination stage and better chances of winning the general election than their counterparts in the opposite party. We employ a survey of district informants in a random sample of House districts to measure the central variables necessary to explore these ideas. We find evidence for the following conclusions: incumbent and potential candidate quality both affect potential candidate chances, with “strategic qualities” generally having a stronger impact than “personal qualities.” Potential candidate qualities have stronger effects than incumbent qualities, and positively affect prospective challenger chances in both the nomination and general election stages. District partisanship has essentially symmetric and very strong effects on potential candidate chances in both stages, negatively affecting nomination chances as the partisan makeup of the district favors the PC, and positively affecting general election chances. An expected parabolic relationship between chances of winning the seat and district partisanship clearly emerges in the analysis. These effects on PC chances are fundamental to our understanding of the sources of competition in U.S. House elections.