Taking a Bite Out of the Crime Issue: Congressional Candidates and Partisan Benefits
| Author | Ethan D. Boldt |
| Published date | 01 July 2019 |
| Date | 01 July 2019 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0887403417731597 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
research-article2017
Article
Criminal Justice Policy Review
2019, Vol. 30(6) 862 –884
Taking a Bite Out of the
© The Author(s) 2017
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Crime Issue: Congressional
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https://doi.org/10.1177/0887403417731597
DOI: 10.1177/0887403417731597
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Candidates and Partisan
Benefits
Ethan D. Boldt1
Abstract
This article examines the common assertion that the Republican Party “owns” the
issue of crime, which holds that the party has garnered electoral support when crime
is a salient political issue. Competing explanations about the origins of the American
public’s crime concern are tested in an electoral context. Utilizing data on races for
the U.S. House of Representatives and races for the U.S. Senate held from 1974
to 2008, the analyses show that increased salience of crime has provided electoral
benefits for Republican candidates. Furthermore, they show that Republicans have
increased these gains by responsively catering their message to the issue at times of
peak concern. Altogether, the results provide support for Republican issue ownership
of crime.
Keywords
political platforms, public opinion, elections, punishment, criminal justice policy
In the 2014 midterm elections, the National Republican Congressional Committee
aired a controversial attack advertisement in the race for Nebraska’s second congres-
sional district. Brad Ashford, the Democratic challenger in the race, was harshly
criticized for his support of the state’s “good time law” while in the Nebraska State
Senate, which cuts a prisoner’s sentence in half if they do not violate prison rules
1University of Georgia, Athens, GA, USA
Corresponding Author:
Ethan D. Boldt, Department of Political Science, University of Georgia, 180 Baldwin Hall, Athens, GA
30602, USA.
Email: edboldt@uga.edu
Boldt
863
(Cordes, 2014). The advertisement placed Ashford alongside Nikko Jenkins, a con-
victed armed robber released early under the law, who went on to murder four people
after his release. The ad alleged, “Brad Ashford supported the good time law and still
defends it, allowing criminals like Nikko Jenkins to be released early” (National
Republican Congressional Committee, 2014). Despite the advertisement, Ashford
won the election.
The use of the crime issue in electoral politics is not new. The content of the Jenkins
advertisement led spectators to draw comparisons to the now infamous “Willie
Horton” ad, which was aired against Democratic presidential candidate Michael
Dukakis during the 1988 campaign (see, for example, Cordes, 2014; Robillard, 2014).
The prominence of crime as an issue in some contests highlights its potential impor-
tance in elections. Even the most recent presidential election saw the return of “law
and order” politics as a central focus in Donald Trump’s campaign featuring promi-
nently in both his acceptance of the Republican Party’s nomination and his inaugura-
tion speech (Trump, 2016, 2017).
This study tests the commonly held assumption that Republicans benefit electorally
from the crime issue through the lens of issue ownership (Petrocik, 1996). Drawing
upon existing theories relating to the development of public concern about crime,
several competing explanations about its rise as a political issue are tested in an elec-
toral context. Using models predicting the Republican candidate’s share of the vote in
contested races for the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate from 1974
to 2008, this study tests whether Republicans benefit electorally when crime is on the
minds of voters. The results demonstrate that Republican candidates for Congress
receive marginal but substantively significant electoral gains from crime’s salience
across both chambers. Importantly, the amount of attention the Republican Party
devotes to the issue augments this effect, further increasing their share of the vote.
Overall, the evidence from this large sample of congressional races is consistent with
arguments in the literature that Republicans “own” the issue of crime.
Republican Ownership of the Crime Issue?
It has long been asserted that Republicans have a special authority on the politics of
crime. Criminologists have examined the social causes and policy consequences of
Republican dominance on the subject. One early example, Finckenauer (1978), ana-
lyzed presidential campaign rhetoric from 1964 to 1976, concluding that presidential
candidates from the ideological right had effectively monopolized the issue. Indeed,
observers in this field have noted that since the candidacy of Barry Goldwater,
Republicans have dominated this policy debate and successfully rebranded the
Democratic Party as being “soft on crime” (see, for example, Cullen, Wright, &
Chamlin, 1999; Jacobs & Helms, 1996; Tonry, 1999).
One vein of research in criminology has detailed the consequences of this phenom-
enon after these Republicans take office. These works have shown that Republican
governance leads to tougher crime policies. For example, Republican Party strength in
legislatures has been found to correspond with higher rates of incarceration at both the
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Criminal Justice Policy Review 30(6)
state and national levels (see, for example, Beckett & Western, 2001; Jacobs & Helms,
1996; Jacobs & Jackson, 2010; Stucky, Heimer, & Lang, 2005). Jacobs and Carmichael
(2004) found that state governance by Republicans was linked to the increased use of
the death penalty. Davies and Worden (2009) demonstrated that Republican control of
statehouses resulted in decreases in subsidies for indigent defense. While the conse-
quences of punitive crime policies are generally understood, the electoral incentives
that encourage these initiatives have not been widely examined.
Political scientists have explored the unique relationship Republican candidates
have with public concern about crime through the theory of issue ownership, which
holds that parties benefit electorally from issues they are perceived to handle better
(Petrocik, 1996; Petrocik, Benoit, & Hansen, 2003). According to Petrocik, candidates
generally perform better when they emphasize issues owned by their party. This theory
has been the foundation of many subsequent studies. Previous works have debated
whether candidates purposefully avoid issues owned by their opponents resulting in
both sides “speaking past each other” (Budge & Farlie, 1977, 1983), or whether can-
didate rhetoric converges upon shared issues relevant to the public (Sigelman & Buell,
2004). Scholars have gone further, exploring the role of incumbents in changing the
public’s attention to issues through policy decisions (Dellis, 2009).
In this literature, most prior works identify crime as a Republican-owned issue or
an area of Republican advantage (Ansolabehere & Iyengar, 1994; Canes-Wrone,
Minozzi, & Reveley, 2011; Cronin, Cronin, & Milakovich, 1981; Cummins, 2010;
Petrocik, 1996; Petrocik et al., 2003; Scheingold, 1991). For example, Petrocik (1996),
Petrocik et al. (2003), and Cummins (2010) found that public opinion polling indicates
that Americans have generally trusted the Republican Party’s agenda regarding crime
more than the Democratic Party’s. Moreover, in an experimental setting, Ansolabehere
and Iyengar (1994) found that simulated Republican campaign advertisements were
more effective than Democratic advertisements in convincing viewers that the candi-
dates were “tough on crime.” In fact, they found that simply by viewing simulated
news coverage of crime, participants were more likely to state that they would vote for
the Republican candidate.
Despite a general consensus on Republican Party ownership of this political prob-
lem, not all candidates have conformed to these expectations. Certainly, appeals to the
public regarding crime are present in both parties (Marion, 1997; Oliver, 2002; Oliver,
Marion, & Hill, 2016). Several Democratic presidents have made crime a central con-
cern. For example, Holian (2004) found that, as a candidate, President Bill Clinton
was successful in neutralizing the Republican advantage on crime. Clinton adopted a
pro-death penalty stance and raised the new concept of “crime prevention.” Crime
prevention emphasized increasing gun control, passing three-strikes laws, and putting
more police officers on the street. Using opinion polls estimating public trust in presi-
dential candidates on the issue of crime, Holian found that Clinton was able to reduce
the disparity between the two parties in terms of public support with his policy posi-
tions. Sides (2006) expanded on this finding that some polls reporting party trust on
crime showed evidence that the erosion of Republican ownership extended beyond the
presidency to the entire Democratic Party during that period.
Boldt
865
These findings show that the strength of the Republican ownership of the crime
issue has varied over time. Yet, there is still reason to expect that Republicans may
benefit electorally from the salience of the issue even when they face weakened trust
on it. While the Democratic Party and its candidates have made appeals about crime
throughout recent history (Marion & Oliver, 2012, 2013; Marion, Smith, & Oliver,
2009; Oliver, 2002, 2003a; Oliver, Hill, & Marion, 2011; Oliver & Marion, 2006,
2008; Oliver et al., 2016), the likelihood for these actions to translate into electoral
gains is far more...
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