IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/kap/pubcho/v34y1979i3p399-418.html

The electoral lottery: Decisions to run for Congress

Author

Listed:
  • Linda Fowler

Abstract

The trend toward electoral security of incumbent members of Congress creates a situation in which challenging an incumbent appears to defy the logic of rational choice. Attitudes toward risk-taking and the rewards of candidacy itself affect a prospective candidate's calculation, and if one regards the decision to run for Congress as a lottery, such behavior can be brought within the framework of rational decision-making. The electoral lottery is operationalized according to incumbency status and the ratio of party strength in each district. Systematic differences in the recruitment of challengers are associated with the lottery types on a variety of dimensions. Data drawn from preelection interviews with forty-three nonincumbent Congressional candidates during 1974 confirm the usefulness of the model. The major finding of the study is that only candidates with a low value for the certain option, who in effect have ‘nothing to lose’, will gamble against an incumbent. Such candidates, however, lack the political resources necessary for success, so that the incumbent rarely faces a serious challenge. Copyright Martinus Nijhoff Publishers b.v. 1979

Suggested Citation

  • Linda Fowler, 1979. "The electoral lottery: Decisions to run for Congress," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 34(3), pages 399-418, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:34:y:1979:i:3:p:399-418
    DOI: 10.1007/BF00225677
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/BF00225677
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/BF00225677?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Fiorina, Morris P., 1977. "The Case of the Vanishing Marginals: The Bureaucracy Did It," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(1), pages 177-181, March.
    2. repec:cup:apsrev:v:66:y:1972:i:02:p:555-568_13 is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Richard Zeckhauser, 1969. "Majority Rule with Lotteries on Alternatives," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 83(4), pages 696-703.
    4. Jacobson, Gary C., 1978. "The Effects of Campaign Spending in Congressional Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 72(2), pages 469-491, June.
    5. Ferejohn, John A., 1977. "On the Decline of Competition in Congressional Elections," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 71(1), pages 166-176, March.
    6. repec:cup:apsrev:v:66:y:1972:i:01:p:144-159_13 is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:cup:apsrev:v:67:y:1973:i:02:p:540-554_14 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Milton Friedman & L. J. Savage, 1948. "The Utility Analysis of Choices Involving Risk," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 56(4), pages 279-279.
    9. repec:cup:apsrev:v:55:y:1961:i:01:p:77-86_12 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. J. Zachary Klingensmith, 2019. "Using tax dollars for re-election: the impact of pork-barrel spending on electoral success," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 30(1), pages 31-49, March.
    2. Larry Samuelson, 1984. "Electoral equilibria with restricted strategies," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 43(3), pages 307-327, January.
    3. Douglas Hart & Michael Munger, 1989. "Declining electoral competitiveness in the House of Representatives: The differential impact of improved transportation technology," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 61(3), pages 217-228, June.
    4. Yogesh Uppal, 2010. "Estimating Incumbency Effects In U.S. State Legislatures: A Quasi‐Experimental Study," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(2), pages 180-199, July.
    5. Awojobi, Oladayo Nathaniel, 2016. "Electoral Verdicts: Incumbent President Defeated for Re-election in Nigeria," Noble International Journal of Social Sciences Research, Noble Academic Publsiher, vol. 1(1), pages 21-30, December.
    6. Stratmann, Thomas, 2013. "The effects of earmarks on the likelihood of reelection," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 341-355.
    7. Camilo Campos-Valdés & Eduardo Álvarez-Miranda & Mauricio Morales Quiroga & Jordi Pereira & Félix Liberona Durán, 2021. "The Impact of Candidates’ Profile and Campaign Decisions in Electoral Results: A Data Analytics Approach," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 9(8), pages 1-17, April.
    8. Richard McKelvey & Jeff Richelson, 1974. "Cycles of risk," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 18(1), pages 41-66, June.
    9. Larry Samuelson, 1987. "A test of the revealed-preference phenomenon in congressional elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 141-169, January.
    10. Bennett, Daniel L. & Long, Jason T., 2019. "Is it the economic policy, stupid? Economic policy, political parties & the gubernatorial incumbent advantage," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 118-137.
    11. Yogesh Uppal, 2009. "The disadvantaged incumbents: estimating incumbency effects in Indian state legislatures," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 138(1), pages 9-27, January.
    12. Heineck, Guido & Süssmuth, Bernd, 2013. "A different look at Lenin’s legacy: Social capital and risk taking in the Two Germanies," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 789-803.
    13. Burkhard Schipper & Hee Yeul Woo, 2012. "Political Awareness and Microtargeting of Voters in Electoral Competition," Working Papers 124, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    14. Edi Karni & Philippe Mongin, 2000. "On the Determination of Subjective Probability by Choices," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 46(2), pages 233-248, February.
    15. Christian Johnson & George G Kaufman, 2007. "Un banco, con cualquier otro nombre…," Boletín, CEMLA, vol. 0(4), pages 185-199, Octubre-d.
    16. Roy, Saktinil & Kemme, David M., 2012. "Causes of banking crises: Deregulation, credit booms and asset bubbles, then and now," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 24(C), pages 270-294.
    17. Nicholas Barberis, 2012. "A Model of Casino Gambling," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 58(1), pages 35-51, January.
    18. Hooi Hooi Lean & Michael McAleer & Wing-Keung Wong, 2013. "Risk-averse and Risk-seeking Investor Preferences for Oil Spot and Futures," Documentos de Trabajo del ICAE 2013-31, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y Empresariales, Instituto Complutense de Análisis Económico, revised Aug 2013.
    19. Pierre-Charles Pradier, 2006. "De usu artis conjectandi in jure : quid de oeconomia (politica) ?," Université Paris1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Post-Print and Working Papers) halshs-00274325, HAL.
    20. Raj Chetty, 2004. "Consumption Commitments, Unemployment Durations, and Local Risk Aversion," NBER Working Papers 10211, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:kap:pubcho:v:34:y:1979:i:3:p:399-418. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.