On the Coattails of a Contract: RNC Activities and Republican Gains in the 1994 State Legislative Elections

• Author: Thomas H. Little
• Date: 01 March 1998
• DOI: 10.1177/106591299805100108
• Published date: 01 March 1998
• Subject Matter: Articles

173

On

the

Coattails

of

a

Contract:

RNC

Activities

and

Republican

Gains

in

the

1994

State

Legislative

Elections

THOMAS

H.

LITTLE,

UNIVERSITY

OF

TEXAS

AT

ARLINGTON

In

1994,

the

Republican

party

initiated

an

unprecedented

effort

by

a

modem

American

political

party

to

coordinate

issues

in

subnational

cam-

paigns.

They

made

a

concerted

effort

to

persuade

state

Republican

party

leaders

to

adopt

electoral

contracts

similar

to

the

"Republican

Contract

with

America,"

reflecting

basic

Republican

values,

but

tailored

to

the

par-

ticular

needs

of

each

state.

About

half

of

the

states

holding

elections

in

1994

responded

by

developing

such documents.

The

purpose

of

this

study

is

to

determine

if

these

contracts

had

coattails

in

the

midterm

state

legis-

lative

elections

similar

to

those

generally

provided

by

popular

presiden-

tial

or

gubernatorial

candidates

during

their

elections.

The

results

indicate

that

many

Republican

state

legislative

candidates

may

indeed

have

rid-

den

their

electoral

contracts

to

historic

seat

gains,

even

controlling

for

such

traditional

predictors

as

presidential

popularity,

economic

evalua-

tion,

variations

in

voter

turnout

and

partisan

financial

support.

These

results

suggest

that

politicians

might

reconsider

how

they

have

tradition-

ally

conducted

legislative

campaigns

and

to

scholars

that

they

reevaluate

how

they

study

them.

NOTE:

A

substantially

longer

and

different

version

of

this

article

was

presented

at

the

annual

meeting

of

the

Midwest

Political

Science

Association,

April,

1996,

in

Chi-

cago,

IL.

I

would

like

to

thank

Michael

K.

Moore,

Catherine

Scott-Little,

and

the

anonymous

reviewers

for

their

assistance

in

improving

this

study

as

well

as

Robin

McJilton

Wheatley

who

assisted

in

gathering

and

preparing

the

data.

Financial

support

for

this

project

was

provided

by

the

College

of

Liberal

Arts

and

the

De-

partment

of

Political

Science

at

the

University

of

Texas

at

Arlington,

and

the

State

Legislative

Leaders

Foundation,

Centerville,

MA.

174

Bringing

together

Republican

candidates Jrom

the

local,

state

and Jederal

level

with

a

unified

message,

we

can

increase

Republican

gains

in

Congress,

in

state

houses

and

in

courthouses

all

across

the

country....

it

is

about

defining,

build-

ing

and

communicating

what

our

party

stands

for,

where

we

will

take

government.

Haley

Barbour,

Contract

with

the

American

People:

Logistics

and

Planning

As

expressed

by

Republican

National

Committee

(RNC)

Chairman

Haley

Barbour

in

a

message

distributed

to

over

12,000

Republican

officials

and

can-

didates

across

the

country,

the

Republican

party

in

1994

became

the

first

major

party

in

modern

American

politics

to

attempt

systematically

to

influ-

ence

and

coordinate

the

issues

on

which

state

and

local

candidates

campaigned,

making

the

1994

elections,

from

top

to

bottom,

a

referendum

on

the

funda-

mental

values

and

ideology

espoused

by

the

Republican

party

While

journal-

ists

and

a

few

scholars

have

given

considerable

attention

to

the

&dquo;Republican

Contract

with

America&dquo;

(Jacobson

1994,

1996;

Koopman

1994;

Riley

1995;

Dwyre

and

Kolodny

1996),

both

seem

to

have

ignored

(or

were

unaware

of)

the

wide

range

of subnational

electoral

contracts.

And

yet

the

growing

impor-

tance

of

state

government

in

the

1990’s,

coupled

with

the

general

volatility

of

state

legislative

elections

in

midterm

election

years

(Van

Dunk

and

Holbrook

1994),

make

this

a

topic

that

should

be

of

considerable

interest

to

both.

Fur-

ther,

the

fact

that

some

states

adopted

contracts

while

others

did

not

makes

this

a

more

ideal

testing

ground

for

the

effects

of

electoral

contracts

than

the

national

election,

because

states

without

such

documents

form

a

natural

con-

trol

group.

In

the

following

pages,

I

will

examine

two

aspects

of

the

Republican

effort

to

influence

the

electoral

agendas

of

the

1994

state

legislative

elections.

First,

the

responses

of

the

states

to

this

initiative

are

examined

to

determine

the

degree

to

which

this

was

a

regional

or

national

phenomenon.

Second,

Repub-

lican

House

and

Senate

gains

in

each

state

are

analyzed

in

a

multivariate

model

to

determine

the

degree

to

which

Republican

candidates

for

the

state

legisla-

ture

rode

these

&dquo;contract

coattails&dquo;

to

victory

in

1994.

THE

1994

STATE

LEGISLATIVE

ELECTION

IN

A

HISTORIC

PERSPECTIVE

Nineteen

hundred

and

ninety-four

was

a

Republican

year.

Republicans

gained

fifty-three

seats

in

the

United

States

House

of

Representatives

and

eight

seats

in

the

United

States

Senate.

The

Republican

party

defeated

five

incum-

bent

Democratic

governors,

while

reelecting

all

ten

of

their

own

incumbents

and

winning

fifteen

open

seats.

They

picked

up

seats

in

thirty-three

of

the

forty-one

state

senates

holding

partisan

elections

in

1994

for

an

increase

of

over

one

hundred

seats,

while

the

Democrats

made

gains

in

only

two

states.

Republican

legislative

caucuses

had

net

gains

in

forty-three

of

the

forty-six