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Westlye. 1991. Senate elections and campaign intensity.
Senate elections come in two flavors: hard-fought and low-key. Low-key elections look a lot like House elections; Hard-fought elections look like real elections. So why are hard-fought elections so common in the Senate but so rare in the House? Two reasons: They are more competitive (better challengers) and the incumbency advantage is much weaker.
So the main reason that Senate campaigns have better challengers (and thus more hard-fought campaigns) is that you can't gerrymander Senate districts, and they're more demographically diverse--there's a closer partisan balance (almost every state has elected statewide officials from both parties in the past 25 years). Thus, more high-quality candidates are willing to run, because the incumbent has less advantage. Plus, donors are more willing to invest in Senators, since one Senate vote is worth four House votes.
Elections from 1968-1984. Wants to explain variations in campaign intensity.
Measuring campaign intensity is difficult. "Intensity" refers to the level of information disbursed in a campaign. All of the following have flaws:
Research on similar subjects
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Westlye, Mark (author) • American Politics • Voting • Congress (U.S.) • Elections
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