Dissertation: Before the Primary: Party Participation in Congressional Nominating Processes
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Before the Primary: Party Participation in Congressional Nominating Processes by Casey Byrne Knudsen Dominguez B.A. (University of California, Berkeley) 1998 M.A. (University of California, Berkeley) 1999 A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science in the GRADUATE DIVISION of the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY Committee in charge: Professor Nelson W. Polsby, Chair Professor Bruce E. Cain Professor John Ellwood Professor Eric Schickler Spring 2005 The dissertation of Casey Byrne Knudsen Dominguez is approved: ________________________________________________________________________ Chair Date ________________________________________________________________________ Date ________________________________________________________________________ Date ________________________________________________________________________ Date University of California, Berkeley Spring 2005 Before the Primary: Party Participation in Congressional Nominating Processes Copyright 2005 by Casey Byrne Knudsen Dominguez Abstract Before the Primary: Party Participation in Congressional Nominating Processes by Casey Byrne Knudsen Dominguez Doctor of Philosophy in Political Science University of California, Berkeley Professor Nelson W. Polsby, Chair This project systematically investigates party elite participation in congressional pre-nomination politics in 2002. Most research on congressional elections predicts election outcomes by focusing solely on the ambitions and qualifications of the candidates running. That focus on candidates stems from the widely held assumption that because American party organizations are not strong hierarchies, candidates’ decisions to seek their party’s nomination for office are completely independent of partisan influence. I contend that if the party is conceptualized more broadly, as a network of elites, including potential candidates, who are interested in winning partisan competitions, that one can observe interactions between such elites and ambitious candidates that cast doubt on the notion that candidates act completely independent of party. I argue that the more competitive the general election race is expected to be, the more likely partisan elites will unify early around one strong candidate in a primary, effectively stacking the primary voters’ choices in favor of that candidate. This project develops novel ways of measuring party elite involvement in primary races. It defines two types of party organizational actors: traditional hierarchical 1 organizations like state and national party committees, and informally aligned elite partisans like officeholders, activists, loyal donors, and loyal partisan interest groups. It then describes measures of the involvement of each of those actors in the campaigns of over 490 primary candidates in 180 races that took place in 2002. Analysis of these data indicates that although partisan elites do tend to respond to the qualities of the candidates who decide to run for the nomination, they also are more likely to unify around one candidate in races that are more competitive. Ten supplementary case studies show that elites who unify behind one candidate in a primary are almost always concerned about the general election, and not merely following the preferences of primary voters. The concluding chapter critiques previous efforts to investigate whether “divisive” primaries hurt the party in the general election, and shows that disunity prior to the primary may not have a direct effect on general election outcomes. Chair Date 2 Dedication For Mom and Dad i Table of Contents List of Tables iv List of Figures vi Acknowledgements vii Chapter 1: Party Nominations and Party Strength 1 Conventional views of political parties in congressional elections 4 Why there is reason to believe parties influence nominations 6 The Party-Involvement Theory of Primary Elections 7 Alternative hypotheses 9 The Feedback Loop of Candidate Quality 9 Only back a winner 10 Why focus on the Party Organization? 11 The Evolving View of Parties as Elite Networks 12 Roadmap 14 Chapter 2: Party Elites in the Candidate Emergence Process, Theory and Hypotheses 16 Elite Loyal Partisan Donors 26 Partisan Elected Officials 30 Party Loyal Groups 32 Candidates 35 Chapter 3: Party Elite Participation in Primaries, A Methodology 42 Research Design and Sampling 44 Organizational Support 52 State Party Endorsements 52 National Party Committees 53 Participation by the Informal Party Network 56 Individual Elite Donations 56 Party Loyal Group endorsements and Party Loyal PAC contributions 60 Individual Elite Endorsements 67 Summary Measure of Party Elite Cohesion 72 ii Chapter 4: Candidate-Party Interactions in the Pre-Primary Period, Evidence 79 from Case Studies The Cases 80 Ten Primary Elections, in Brief 82 Texas Senate: Republican Primary 85 Texas Senate: Democratic Primary 90 Texas 5th: Republican Primary 94 Texas 5th: Democratic Primary 99 Texas 25th: Democratic Primary 101 Texas 25th: Republican Primary 104 Maryland 8th: Republican Primary 104 Maryland 8th: Democratic Primary 106 Maryland 2nd: Democratic Primary 109 Maryland 2nd: Republican Primary 113 Do partisan elites influence primaries? 115 Chapter 5: How Party Elites and Ambitious Candidates Respond to Anticipated General Election Competitiveness 124 Hypotheses: The effects of primary election environments on ambitious candidates and 126 partisan elites Ambitious candidates’ responses to primary election environments 132 Patterns of partisan elite unity in primaries 140 Elite unity and candidate quality 145 There’s more to pre-primary partisan support than candidate quality 151 Does candidate quality account for unified partisan support in a primary? 152 Conclusions 155 Chapter 6: The Importance of Considering the Role of Elites in the Primary 157 Process Does Elite Intervention in the Primary Help the Party in the General Election? 157 Previous Work 159 Hypotheses 168 Results 168 Discussion 175 Conclusions 177 References 186 iii List of Tables Table 2.1: Contrasting theories of candidate and party behavior in primaries 37 Table 3.1: Districts included in 2002 primary election sample 49 Table 3.2: Number of Included Primary Races by Type 51 Table 3.3: Primary race differences, by state party endorsement rules 53 Table 3.4: Primary Races Where A Single Candidate Receives Money from a 55 National Party Committee Table 3.5: Number of candidates in selected 2002 primary races receiving party 59 loyal donations Table 3.6: Number of House Races in Which One Candidate Receives all of the 60 Party Loyal Money Contributed by individuals in the Primary (by Race type) Table 3.7: Number of primary endorsement survey respondents by primary race 62 Type Table 3.8: Representativeness of respondents to endorsement survey 63 Table 3.9: Group endorsement types 64 Table 3.10: Number of Political Action Committees that are Party Loyal at various 66 levels of loyalty Table 3.11: Number of House Races in Which One Candidate Receives all of the 67 Money Contributed by Party Loyal PACs in the Primary (by Race type) Table 3.12: Endorsements received by primary candidates in House races, by 71 endorser position Table 3.13: Intercoder reliability: Pearson’s correlations with author’s final 75 judgment on each race. Table 3.14: Logit predictions of whether party will visibly support a candidate 77 Table 3.15: Total House and Senate races where one candidate is coded as party 78 Favorite Table 4.1: Primary Races, Ratings, and Winners 84 Table 4.2: Candidates for the Texas Republican U.S. Senate Nomination in 2002 87 Table 4.3: Candidates for the Texas Democratic Nomination for the U.S. Senate, 91 2002 Table 4.4: Candidates for the Republican Nomination in the Texas 5th District, 96 2002 Table 4.5: Candidates for the Democratic nomination for the Texas 5th District, 99 2002 Table 4.6: Candidates for the Democratic Nomination in the Texas 25th District, 102 2002 Table 4.7: Candidates for the Republican Nomination in the Texas 25th District, 104 2002 Table 4.8: Candidates for the Republican Nomination, Maryland 8th District, 2002 105 Table 4.9: Candidates for the Democratic Nomination in the Maryland 8th District, 107 2002 iv Table 4.10: Candidates for the Democratic Nomination in Maryland’s 2nd District, 111 2002 Table 4.11: Candidates for the Republican Nomination in Maryland’s 2nd District, 113 2002 Table 4.12: Expected Outcome and Party Favorite Coding 116 Table 5.1: Expectations about primary election dynamics, given candidate- 127 centered and party-centered approaches Table 5.2: Expected Primary Dynamics in three primary environments 132 Table 5.3: Predictions about Candidate Emergence 133 Table 5.4: Number of candidates in House and Senate primary races, 2002 134 Table 5.5: Number of primary races featuring a given number of previously 136 elected Candidates Table 5.6: Number of high-quality candidates in House and Senate primary races, 137 2002 Table 5.7: Expected Primary Dynamics in three primary environments 141 Table 5.8: Number of races where the party has a favorite 141 Table 5.9: Elites rally around high quality candidates 146 Table 5.10: Elites rally around high quality candidates in all race types 147 Table 5.11: Pre-primary party unity in races where only one previously elected 148 candidate seeks the nomination Table 5.12: Pre-primary party unity in races where several elected candidates seek 150 the nomination Table 5.13: Logit coefficients predicting whether a candidate will receive