Primary Systems and Candidate Ideology
| Author | Stephanie Langella,Jon C. Rogowski |
| Published date | 01 September 2015 |
| Date | 01 September 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X14555177 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2014
Article
American Politics Research
2015, Vol. 43(5) 846 –871
Primary Systems and
© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X14555177
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Evidence From Federal
and State Legislative
Elections
Jon C. Rogowski1 and Stephanie Langella1
Abstract
The nomination of ideologically extreme candidates in party primaries has
led many scholars and observers to speculate about the role played by
different kinds of primary systems. Models of candidate competition that
account for the two-stage nature of the electoral process suggest that more
restrictive primary systems produce more ideologically extreme candidates.
In contrast with previous research that examines the relationship between
primaries and legislative ideology, we focus on how primary systems affect
the ideological extremity of candidates’ campaign platforms. Using data on
more than 85,000 major party candidates for Congress and state legislatures
from 1980-2012, we find no evidence that the restrictiveness of primary
participation rules is systematically associated with candidate ideology.
Keywords
primary elections, candidate competition, spatial models, congressional
elections
Scholars, pundits, journalists, policy analysts, and politicians themselves
have lamented the increases in partisan polarization in U.S. Congress
1Washington University in St. Louis, MO, USA
Corresponding Author:
Jon C. Rogowski, Department of Political Science, Washington University in St. Louis, Campus
Box 1063, One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
Email: jrogowsk@artsci.wustl.edu
Rogowski and Langella
847
(McCarty, Poole, & Rosenthal, 2006) and state legislatures (Shor & McCarty,
2011) over the last several decades. Reformers have advocated a variety of
measures designed to mitigate ideological extremism in American politics,
and reducing the restrictions on voter participation in party primaries has
been among their biggest targets. Recently, Senator Charles E. Schumer
(D-NY) succinctly summarized the arguments put forth by proponents of pri-
mary reforms: “The partisan primary system, which favors more ideologi-
cally pure candidates, has contributed to the election of more extreme
officeholders and increased political polarization” (Schumer, 2014).
This basic claim is quite consistent with the intuition from spatial models
of elections. While classic unidimensional models of candidate competition
predict that competing candidates in a two-candidate election will adopt cam-
paign platforms that converge at the preferences of the median voter (Calvert,
1985; Downs, 1957), models that depict the two-stage nature of most
American elections that begin with a primary predict that candidates will
often diverge (Coleman, 1971; Owen & Grofman, 2006). Because candidates
must first appeal to the median primary voter before moving on to the general
election, the parties’ nominees will adopt divergent platforms (e.g., Aldrich,
1983) to the degree that median primary voters have divergent preferences
across the two parties.1 Based on this logic, the rules governing primary par-
ticipation are likely to affect the platforms chosen by candidates. Primary
systems with restrictive participation rules—for instance, those states in
which only registered party members are allowed to participate in that party’s
primary—are likely to generate candidates who choose more ideologically
extreme platforms compared with systems in which primary participation is
open to all voters.
In this article, we build on recent work that studies the effect of primaries
on legislative behavior (e.g., Bullock & Clinton, 2011; Gerber & Morton,
1998; Hirano, Ansolabehere, & Hansen, 2010; Kanthak & Morton, 2001;
McGhee, Masket, Shor, Rogers, & McCarty, 2014) to make three contribu-
tions to the study of primary rules. First, we focus on how primary systems
affect the campaign platforms that candidates offer to voters. The logic out-
lined above predicts that candidates in states with more open primary systems
adopt more moderate platforms. Second, whereas prior research has exam-
ined the effect of primaries on roll call voting behavior only among those
candidates elected to office, we examine how primaries affect platforms
among both winning and losing candidates. And third, rather than study the
effect of primaries in a single state or legislative institution, we compare the
effects of primary systems in 49 states across legislatures at both the federal
and state levels.
We use estimates of ideology generated from campaign finance records
for more than 85,000 major party candidates for the U.S. House and state
848
American Politics Research 43(5)
legislatures from 1980 to 2012 (Bonica, 2014) to directly assess how primary
type affects candidate ideology. Our results are mixed. First, contrary to
expectations, we find no systematic evidence that open primaries generate
more ideologically moderate candidates than closed primaries. More gener-
ally, we also find no consistent evidence that semi-closed, semi-open, or non-
partisan primaries reduce the level of ideological extremity relative to closed
primaries. Instead, the effects vary across party, office, and subsets of candi-
dates. Thus, while primary systems may indeed have significant implications
for defining the incentives for candidates, parties, and voters, less restrictive
primary participation rules do not appear to alter the incentives for ideologi-
cal moderation in the way posited by spatial models of electoral
competition.
Primary Systems and Candidate Platforms
The canonical unidimensional spatial model of elections posits that electoral
competition induces candidates to select platforms that closely correspond to
the preferences of the median voter (Downs, 1957). However, virtually no
empirical findings support this prediction (e.g., Ansolabehere, Snyder, &
Stewart, 2001a; Burden, 2004; Stone & Simas, 2010; Sullivan & Minns,
1976; Wright & Berkman, 1986). Several subsequent theories of candidate
competition attribute these findings to the two-stage nature of American elec-
tions (Coleman, 1971; Owen & Grofman, 2006). Before competing in the
general election, candidates must first secure their party’s nomination, facing
incentives to hew to the preferences of their primary constituencies (Brady,
Han, & Pope, 2007).
However, primary systems vary across the U.S. states. Some states con-
duct primaries in a purely open fashion, in which there are no restrictions on
voters’ abilities to select party nominees. At the opposite end of the spectrum,
other states restrict participation in nominating primaries to voters who are
registered members of the party. Still other states have primary systems that
fall somewhere in between these extremes. These differences in primary rules
are believed to have important consequences for the platforms chosen by
candidates (Brady & Schwartz, 1995; Burden, 2004; Francis, Kenny, Morton,
& Schmidt, 1994; Gerber & Morton, 1998; Schmidt, Kenny, & Morton,
1996). In particular, the restrictiveness of primary participation rules is likely
to affect the ideological composition of the primary electorate (e.g., Besley &
Case, 2003). Thus, as primary rules are more restrictive, the voters participat-
ing in that primary election are likely to be more ideologically extreme rela-
tive to the electorate as a whole. Kaufmann, Gimpel, and Hoffman (2003)
provide empirical support for this claim. Studying the period 1988-2000, the
Rogowski and Langella
849
authors find that primary voters are more ideologically moderate and more
representative of the electorate as a whole in states with more open primary
rules.
Differences in the ideological composition of the primary electorate that
correspond with primary participation rules, then, provide different incen-
tives for the platforms candidates ultimately choose. Models such as those
found in Aldrich (1983) provide an intuition for characterizing this relation-
ship that derives from Downs’s spatial formulation. To the extent that pri-
mary electorates differ from the electorates in the general election, then,
candidates have incentives to select platforms that diverge from the median
voter’s preferences in the general electorate. As a consequence, more restric-
tive primary rules may result in more ideologically extreme candidates.2
The veracity of this prediction is widely accepted, as literature on candi-
date divergence and party polarization illustrates. In a literature review,
Grofman (2004) writes, “The extent of between-party divergence is also
affected by the exact nature of the party nominating process” (p. 20).
According to McCarty (2011), “It seems almost a logical certainty that open-
ing primary elections to more nonpartisan and independent voters should
have a moderating effect on politics by increasing the chance that moderate
candidates get nominated” (p. 363). In considering the relationship between
primary type and legislative behavior, a large and diverse range of scholar-
ship, including Ansolabehere et al. (2001a); Burden (2004); Fiorina (1999);
Galderisi, Ezra, and Lyons (2001); and Hacker and Pierson (2005), argues
that closed primary systems produce more ideologically extreme legislators.
Some scholarship, however, argues that the relationship between primary
rules and...
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