Partisan Extremity in the 2014 Midterm Elections:
How Primaries and Incumbency Influence Polarized Position-Taking on Campaign Websites
by
Kevin Parsneau
Minnesota State University
and
Christopher Chapp
St. Olaf College
Abstract:
We investigate sources of extreme partisan rhetoric in the 2014 election by analyzing congressional campaign
websites. Scholars have identified the ideological position of the incumbent, the presence of a primary challenger
and potential for general election defeat as variables that pressure candidates to become more extreme in their
rhetoric (Boatright 2013). Campaign websites provide rich opportunities for analysis because they are readily
available with unmediated content and provide a representative sample of campaign messages (Druckman et al.
2009). We use the computer program Wordscores to score websites based upon the extent of their partisanship
(Laver et al. 2003), analyzing over 1.6 million words to score 761 campaign websites for their partisan content. Our
findings support some conventional understanding of the 2014 election as well as providing new insights on
campaign rhetoric. We find that primary challenges affect incumbents’ campaign rhetoric, with progressive
challengers associated with more extreme rhetoric by Democrats and Tea Party challengers associated with more
extreme rhetoric by Republicans. In addition, incumbents rhetorically respond to account for primary challengers,
but in different manners depending upon party.
* We are grateful to Scott Granberg-Rademacker and Claire Bransky for helpful feedback on this chapter.
1
In recent years, most fair-minded observers of politics have concluded that members of
Congress are more polarized than ever.1 Congressional voting behavior is increasingly bifurcated, with
even the most moderate Democrats having little in common with the most moderate Republicans.2
While there is some debate over the extent to which these changes are mirrored in the public at large,
there is no question that the public is also changing. For example, it is clear that the American public is
increasingly sorting itself into homogenous liberal and conservative camps, and that Americans are
coming to hold increasingly negative characterizations of partisan outgroups.3 Despite the resounding
diagnosis of elevated partisan polarization among both elites and the mass public, we know relatively
little about how these trends are connected. In particular, it is important to understand the extent to
which elections—the principal institution connecting candidates to the public—promote polarized
political communication. This chapter addresses this gap by examining candidates’ issue statements from
the midterm congressional elections, identifying the conditions under which the most extreme partisan
rhetoric emerges.
The literature on congressional campaigns identifies numerous considerations that drive
extreme partisan rhetoric. Some of the earliest attempts to grapple with this question used spatial
models, concluding that candidates’ rhetoric should reflect the ideology of the district median voter.4 Of
course, this rhetoric might reflect the actual policy positions of candidates recruited according to their
“fit” in a district, or messages might be strategically crafted to convince voters that the candidates are
1
Thomas E. Mann and Norman J. Ornstein, It’s Even Worse Than It Looks (New York: Basic Books, 2012).
For example, see Christopher Hare and Keith T. Poole, “Partisan Polarization and American Democracy,” Polity 46
(2014): 411-429.
3 Lilliana Mason, ‘“I Disrespectfully Agree”: The Differential Effects of Partisan Sorting on Social and Issue
Polarization,” American Journal of Political Science 59(1) (2014): 128-145.
4 Downs, Anthony, An Economic Theory of Democracy (New York: Harper and Row, 1957); See also Robert G.
Boatright, Getting Primaried: The Changing Politics of Congressional Primary Challenges (Ann Arbor: University of
Michigan Press, 2013); Barry Burden, “Candidate Positioning in U.S. Congressional Elections,” British Journal of
Political Science (2004): 211-227.
2
2
responsive to their preferences.5 This tendency is exacerbated when electoral competition is stiff.
Intensely competitive elections require candidates to move beyond their base to appeal to ideological
moderates (lest the opposing candidate do the same), and thus stronger competition should promote
increased responsiveness to the median voter.6 Less competitiveness or greater candidate strength
creates leeway for candidates, particularly incumbents who enjoy high re-election rates.
While the district median voter figures heavily in most analysis of campaign rhetoric, scholars
have identified other variables that affect rhetorical positions.7 One central theme in the literature is
that incumbency status and the quality of the opponent are consequential. Druckman, Kifer and Parkin
(2009) argue that challengers have incentives to rely upon risky rhetorical strategies while strong
incumbents have incentives to trust that incumbency status will carry the day.8 Challengers are also
more likely to emphasize issues and party affiliation to shift voters’ attention away from the incumbents’
strengths.9 As electoral strength increases for challengers or decreases for incumbents, challengers
engage in less risk taking and incumbents more. Druckman et al. find that the strategies of front-runners
in open seats reflect the strategic behavior of incumbents while trailing challengers behave more like
candidates facing incumbents.10
Of course, in ideologically “safe” districts, candidates are often more concerned about a strong
primary challenge than in the general election itself. Accordingly, primaries should also figure heavily
into the discussion of candidates’ rhetorical strategies. On the one hand, primaries are signs of healthy
electoral competition even in districts dominated by one party, and primary candidates raise issues that
5
Lawrence R. Jacobs and Robert Y. Shapiro, “Issues, Candidate Image, and Priming: The Use of Private Polls in
Kennedy’s 1960 Presidential Campaign,” American Political Science Review 88 (1994): 527-40.
6 Burden, “Candidate Positioning,” 211-227.
7 Boatright Getting Primaried; Burden, “Candidate Positioning,” 211-227.
8 James N. Druckman, Martin J. Kifer and Michael Parkin, “Campaign Communications in U.S. Congressional
Elections, American Political Science Review 103(3) (2009): 343-366.
9 Druckman et al, “Campaign Communications,” 343-366.
10 Druckman et al, “Campaign Communications,” 343-366.
3
resonate with general election voters.11 On the other hand, primaries may pressure incumbents to adopt
extreme partisan rhetoric to ward off challenges (which may in turn undermine the ability to
compromise once elected). While evidence on the precise mechanisms yoking primary election
dynamics to general election strategy is somewhat mixed, it is clear that primaries exert some sort of an
effect. For example, Lazarus finds that weakness in the general election produces party division and
increases the likelihood of primary challenges.12 Pearson and Lawless find that sufficiently visible primary
opponents may be able to raise issues that influence general elections.13 Burden finds that primary
voters pay more attention to ideology and policy than general election voters and thus have a stronger
effect than general election voters. Analyzing congressional primaries since the 1970s, Boatright finds
that primaries are more of a threat than in the past because they are often better funded and more
likely to have support at the national level. Thus, he argues that incumbents have more to fear from
primary challenges, and that primaries may now have more consequences for incumbents’ behavior.14
The question then becomes how incumbents respond to primary challenges. Brady, Han and
Pope (2007) offer a theoretical rationale for primaries pulling candidates away from the district median.
Incumbents who view their primary opponents as unrepresentative of the median primary voter may
not change their behavior.15 Although they can pose a threat to incumbents, centrist primary challengers
have less effect upon incumbent positions and are less common than primary opponents who are more
extreme than the incumbent.16 Thus Democratic incumbents usually face pressure to move further to
the left while Republican incumbents face pressure to move further right. Burden finds that competitive
11
Boatright Getting Primaried.
Jeffery Lazarus, “Unintended Consequences: Anticipation of General Election Outcomes And Primary Election
Divisiveness,” Legislative Studies Quarterly (2005): 435-461.
13
Kathryn Pearson and Jennifer L. Lawless, “Primary Competition and Polarization in the U.S. House of
Representatives” (paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago,
Illinois, 2008).
14
Boatright Getting Primaried.
15
Boatright Getting Primaried; David W. Brady, Hahrie Han, and Jeremy C. Pope, “Primary Elections and Candidate
Ideology,” Legislative Studies Quarterly (2007): 79-105.
16
Boatright Getting Primaried.
12
4
primaries pull candidates away from district median as incumbents and challengers both try to appeal to
the party median.17 Even though incumbents almost always win primaries, they sometimes shift away
from the general election median voter in response to a strong primary challenge or even in advance of
an election season to minimize the risk of a primary challenge. Nor is incumbency the only candidate
characteristic that interacts with primary challenges. Lawless and Pearson, for example, find that female
candidates are more likely to attract competition in primaries, creating even greater incentives for
women to ideologically move toward the party base.18 Interestingly, research has demonstrated that
primary challenges can have consequences even beyond the general election.19 For example, King (2001)
finds that primary competition promotes ideological extremism even moderate districts, and Theriault
(2006) estimates that one-third of growth in congressional polarization comes from movement to
extremes by members. 20, 21
These considerations lead to several predictions about the driving forces behind extreme
partisan rhetoric in the 2014 midterms. First, the partisanship of the districts matters. Candidates will
likely try to rhetorically mirror the relative partisan complexion of their districts.22 Districts are usually
fairly ideologically homogenous, and so we expect incumbents who have already found favor among the
voters in their district to adopt the most partisan stances. In contrast, because challengers are usually
running in districts where their partisanship is a disadvantage, they should be on average more
moderate than incumbents. Because primary challengers are usually more extreme than incumbents, we
17
Burden, “Candidate Positioning,” 211-227.
Jennifer Lawless and Kathryn Pearson, “The primary Reason for Women’s Underrepresentation? Reevaluating
the Conventional Wisdom,” Journal of Politics 70 (2008): 67-82.
19 Boatright Getting Primaried.
20 David King, “Congress Polarization, and Fidelity to the Median Voter,” Unpublished Manuscript, Kennedy School
of Government – Harvard University (2001).
21 Sean M. Theriault, “Party Polarization in the U.S. Congress: Member Replacement and Member Adaptation,”
Party Politics, (2006, 12): 483-503.
22 But see Stephen Ansobelehere, James M. Snyder and Charles Stewart, “Candidate Positioning in U.S. House
Elections” American Journal of Political Science 45 (2001): 136-59.
18
5
hypothesize that primaries should drive incumbents in a partisan direction. Furthermore, we expect
more extreme opponents such as Progressive Democrats or Tea Party Republicans to pressure
incumbents to be more partisan in order to shore up their bases. Finally, we investigate the extent to
which candidate gender affects partisan extremism. Because women are more likely to attract primary
challenges than men, we expect that, ceteris paribus, women will employ more partisan rhetorical
strategies than men in order to guard against primary competition.
Testing for ideological extremity
To test these expectations, we collected the text from every Republican and Democratic
congressional campaign website in the 2014 election. We first identified the campaign web addresses of
all Republican and Democratic candidates on the ballot in 2014. When multiple candidates from a single
party were on the ballot, we only included the candidate who won the highest percentage of the vote in
the primary election. Data collection began three weeks prior to the 2014 general election. A team of
students were instructed to “copy and paste” all the text from the website homepages, biography pages,
and issues statements into text files. (Because we are interested in partisan extremity, the present study
does not consider content from biography pages). Students were instructed not to copy moving or
refreshing text (like banners), nor updating text (like news releases).
Website text has a number of advantages. First, research indicates that it is a good indicator of
the overall thrust of a campaign, mirroring other types of campaign communication with respect to
elements like negativity.23 The candidates control the content of their websites and website content is
unmediated by others such as journalists.24 Second, other forms of campaign communication -- like
23
24
Druckman et al, “Campaign Communications,” 343-366.
Ibid.
6
television ads -- are only produced in a fraction of the most competitive and well-funded races.25 Looking
at television advertising would thus limit our ability to examine how competition impacts rhetorical
choices. Almost every campaign has a website, and thus an essentially complete and representative
sample of campaign websites were readily available. In all, we identified 789 major party candidates,
680 of whom produced some sort of issues statement on a website (totaling over 1.6 million words).
Druckman, Kifer and Parkin find that campaigns prioritize their website messages for highly engaged
voters, supportive voters and supportive activists, making websites a rich source of information about
the messages campaigns want to deliver to voters highly likely to vote in primaries and then general
elections as well as provide a core of campaign volunteers and contributors.26 Websites capture the
aggregate of campaign communications aimed at key demographics for successful campaigns as well as
voters in general.
To examine the partisan nature of campaign rhetoric, we use an innovative computer program,
Wordscores, which analyzes “virgin” text and extracts scores on a dimension set by the choice of
baseline “reference” texts.27 Wordscores uses words as data and calculates a score for any text based
upon similarity to other text used for reference. With Wordscores, analysts provide a set of reference
texts with varying, predetermined scores on the dimension of interest (like partisanship or ideology) and
the program creates a dataset of words or sets of words to use to assign scores to unknown virgin texts
based upon the extent to which the element differentiates between reference text categories.
Wordscores is an appropriate tool for several reasons. First, previous research has used it to
successfully ideologically scale text. For example, Laver, Benoit and Garry used Wordscores to examine
British parliamentary party manifestos during a period of party realignment from 1992-1997 and closely
25
James N. Druckman, Martin J. Kifer, and Michael Parkin, “Timeless Strategy Meets New Medium: Going Negative
on Congressional Campaign Websites, 2002-2006,” Political Communication 27 (2010): 88-103.
26 Druckman et al, “Campaign Communications,” 343-366.
27
Michael Laver, Kenneth Benoit, and John Garry, “Extracting Policy Positions from Political Texts Using Words as
Data” American Political Science Review 97 (2003): 311-331.
7
replicated much more painstaking methods of textual analysis as well as independent expert surveys.28
Second, Wordscores allows us to examine a large set of text. “Hand coding” for partisanship over our
sample of 680 webpages would be extremely labor intensive and could suffer from reliability problems.
Along these lines, Wordscores, unlike other methods of content analysis, also generates a measure of
uncertainty, allowing us to probe potential limitations to the present inquiry.
Critically, the scores generated by Wordscores will only be as good as the chosen reference texts.
Wordscores has been criticized on the grounds that the reference texts may be too dissimilar from the
virgin texts, and that the resulting scoring may be picking up individual differences specific reference
texts, rather than the dimension of interest. Fortunately, members of congress also maintain “.gov”
websites separate from their campaign apparatus, but which nevertheless mirror the basic format of a
campaign site (homepage, biography page, and issues stances). To select a set of reference texts, we
randomly selected the texts from forty 2014 congressional websites (24 Democrats and 16 Republicans,
232,521 total words). To maintain consistency with our virgin campaign texts, we used only the website
home pages, biography pages, and all issue pages. As with the virgin campaign texts, we did not use
updating and supplemental information because some members frequently update their pages with
additional content while others do not. These sites match the criteria for good reference texts from
Laver, Benoit and Garry because they use the same basic lexicon of words as the campaign websites,
there are enough reference texts to provide adequate baselines, and the website text mirrors range of
partisan discourse present on campaign websites.29
For our reference texts, we set Democrats as -1.0 and Republicans as +1.0. We set Wordscores
to use all one-word and two-word elements to capture overall textual similarity. While Laver, Benoit and
Garry defend the use of one-word elements,30 we also included two-word elements to insure that
28
Ibid.
Ibid.
30 Ibid.
29
8
partisan issues such as “abortion rights” or “gun rights” would result in increased differentiation rather
than similarity based upon shared use of the word “rights.” After running reference texts, we score each
of the 680 virgin campaign texts accordingly, obtaining what we call “Partisan Extremity” scores.31 Since
the virgin campaign texts are scored according to their correspondence with these reference texts, those
candidates with greater similarity to reference Democrats had negative Partisan Extremity scores and
those with greater similarity to reference Republicans had positive Partisan Extremity scores. In this
paper, we report “transformed” scores, which are adjusted so that the variance of the virgin texts
matches the variance in our original reference texts.
The Partisan Extremity measure calculated by Wordscores demonstrates strong face and criterion
validity. First, our measure of partisanship does a good job of differentiating Democrats and Republicans.
The Democratic candidates’ mean Partisan Extremity score -0.513, indicating similarity to our reference
texts from the set of congressional Democrats, while the Republican candidates’ mean is +0.814. On
average, Democrats were closer to the center than were Republicans, a pattern which mirrors voting
patterns in the House in recent years.32 Furthermore, the Partisan Extremity variable differentiates
within parties between different intra-party groups as categorized by the Brookings Institution.33 Figure 1
reports the Partisan Extremity scores for different self-identified categories of Democrats and
Republicans. The mean scores for categories match expectations, starting with the extreme left
Progressive Democrats (-0.72) to the extreme right Tea Party Republicans (+1.04), with Establishment
Democrats (-0.51), Moderate Democrats (-0.24), Conservative Republicans (+0.68) and Business
31
Partisanship and ideology are of course highly correlated in the U.S. House, and to some extent our Partisan
Extremity measure captures both concepts. For present purposes, the important issue is not whether the extremity
itself is entirely partisan or ideological, but rather the extent to which congressional candidates are adopting
language that differentiates left-wing Democrats from right-wing Republicans, signaling more extreme positions to
voters.
32 Keith T. Poole and Howard Rosenthal, Congress: A Political Economic History of Roll Call Voting (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1997).
33 Elaine C. Kamarck and Alexander R. Podkul, “Congressional Primaries: Who Ran and Why,” Brookings Center for
Effective Public Management, 2014.
9
Republicans (+0.77) in between. Finally, looking just at incumbents, our measure has a high correlation
(r=0.773, p<.001, n=367) with members’ ideological voting in the 113th congress, as measured by first
dimension DW-Nominate scores. These validity checks indicate that Partisan Extremity score does a good
job measuring underlying partisan differences in rhetoric.
INSERT FIGURE 1 HERE
Results
Our findings support some conventional understanding of the 2014 election as well as providing
new insights into campaign rhetoric. First, as expected, candidates’ rhetoric reflects their status as
incumbents or challengers. Incumbents used more extreme partisan rhetoric than challengers and those
vying for open seats. Figure 2 reports the Partisan Extremity scores for each group. Incumbents’ rhetoric
presumably reflects the flexibility afforded them by incumbency advantage and the partisanship of the
districts where their party usually held an electoral advantage. Meanwhile, Democratic challengers used
moderate rhetoric, reflecting that they were usually running in districts that generally favored
Republicans, and Republican challengers likewise used moderate rhetoric reflecting that they were
usually running in Democratic districts.
INSERT FIGURE 2 HERE
The mean score for Democratic incumbents was -0.77, compared to challengers vying for open seats at 0.39 and those running against Republican incumbents at -0.29. The mean score for Republican
incumbents was +1.02, compared to +0.95 for challengers vying for open seats and those running against
10
Democratic incumbents at +0.49. In both cases, challengers running against incumbents were
significantly less partisan than incumbents.
A second strategic consideration is gender. As Figure 3 illustrates, female candidates staked out
more extreme partisan positions than their male counterparts. Democratic women used language
further left (-.61) than Democratic men (-.48), although it should be noted that this difference does not
hold up as statistically significant in multivariate analysis. Likewise, while Republican women used
language further right (.90) than Republican men (.80), and the difference was statistically significant in
further analysis.
INSERT FIGURE 3 HERE
Figures 4 – 6 turn to primary challenges, using data from Kamarck and Podkul’s primary election
candidate categorizations.34 Figure 4 reports the scores for incumbents who face primaries compared to
those who didn’t.35 Boatright argued that a recent trend where primary challengers are better funded
and more nationalized means that primary challenges should affect incumbents and these results
generally support his argument for the 2014 election.36 Regardless of their ultimate fate in the primary,
primary opponents pushed incumbents to the extremes. Democrats without primaries had a mean score
of -0.44 while those with primaries had a mean of -0.61. Republicans without primaries had a mean
score of +0.76 while those with primaries had a mean of +0.83.
INSERT FIGURE 4 HERE
34
Kamarck and Podkul, “Congressional Primaries.”
35
These results do not differentiate by the strength of the challenger. We examined the margin of victory in the primary rather
than just the presence or absence of a contested primary and did not find substantive differences.
36
Boatright Getting Primaried.
11
Primary challengers often come from party members more extreme than the incumbent and
create incentives for incumbents to take more extreme positions. Figure 5 reports the mean Party
Extremity scores for non-Progessive Democrats and Progressive Democrats who faced different typesof
challengers in primaries.
INSERT FIGURE 5 HERE
Non-Progressive and Progressive Democrats used more extreme partisan rhetoric after facing
Progressive primary opponents than non-Progressive opponents. Non-Progressives had a mean score of
-0.63 when they faced Progressive Democrats and -0.48 when they faced non-Progressive Democrats.
While already relatively extreme, Progressive Democrats had a mean score of -0.82 when they faced
Progressive Democrats and -0.73 when they faced non-Progressive Democrats. Figure 6 reports similar
results for the Republicans and the Tea Party faction. Non-Tea Party Republicans had a mean score of
+1.1 when they faced Tea Party Republicans and +0.76 when they faced non-Tea Party Republicans. Tea
Party Republicans had a mean score of +1.10 when they faced Tea Party Republicans and +0.9 when they
faced non-Tea Party Republicans. Progressive challengers are associated with more extreme liberal
rhetoric by Democratic incumbents’ campaigns, and Tea Party challengers are associated with more
extreme conservative rhetoric by Republican incumbents’ campaigns. Extremism among primary
challengers increases partisan extremism in the general election.
INSERT FIGURE 6 HERE
In order to further analyze the causes of extremely partisan rhetoric in the 2014 campaign, we
used regression analysis and controlled for the effects of our independent variables. We analyzed
12
Democrats and Republicans in separate regression models using a dichotomous “Incumbent” variable (1
= incumbent, 0 = non-incumbent), a dichotomous “Female” variable (1 = female, 0 = male), and a
dichotomous “Contested Primary” variable (1 = primary, 0 = no primary) in each model.37 To measure the
partisan nature of the district, we employed a “GOP margin” variable equal to the Republican general
election percentage of the vote minus the Democratic percentage with positive and higher scores
indicating Republican strength. Finally, we interact “GOP margin” with “Contested Primary” to examine
the combined effect of primaries with district partisan strength because altering general election
strategy is probably contingent on the partisanship of the district. Results are reported in Figure 8.
INSERT FIGURE 7 HERE
The coefficient for the “Incumbent” variable is significant and signed in the expected direction for both
parties. Consistent with Figure 2, incumbents running for re-election tend to invoke more partisan
rhetoric. Democrats and Republicans diverge with respect to candidate gender, with the coefficient only
holding up as significant for Republicans. This difference has two possible explanations. Among
Republicans, women may have had a harder time convincing their base that they were truly
“conservative” and thus they may have adopted more extreme partisan language to assure base voters
of their adherence to the party line. Additionally, Boatright argues that candidates’ strategies reflect
considerations for the current race as well as to reduce the threat of future primaries,38 and Lawless and
Pearson find that women are more likely to attract competition in primaries.39 It is possible that women
used more extreme rhetoric to discourage future primary challenges.
37
These models exclude general elections that were not contested. We also examined the margin of victory in the primary
rather than just the presence or absence of a contested primary and did not find substantive differences.
38
39
Boatright Getting Primaried.
Lawless and Pearson, “Women’s Underrepresentation,” 67-82.
13
For Democrats, the contested primary variable is significant, suggesting the Democrats respond
to the dynamics of a primary challenge with a more extreme general election campaign. However, for
Democrats the interaction term is not significant. Taken together, this suggests that Democrats general
election campaign rhetoric is driven more by the dynamics of a contested primary than fear of a general
election loss. For Republicans, in contrast, neither the GOP margin nor the dynamics of a contested party
matter independently, however the significant interaction term indicates these variables operate in
tandem, such that Republicans are responsive to the partisan composition of their district only when
they faced a contested primary. This demonstrates nuanced electoral calculation, whereby Republican
candidates move to the right when they’ve been “primaried,” but otherwise tack to the center.
Conclusions
By many accounts, the 2014 congressional elections were some of the most extreme and divisive
campaigns ever. The public is increasingly disillusioned by the electoral process, and pundits and political
scientists alike have noted the extreme rhetoric and potential negative consequences for American
democracy. Primaries are one a potential source of extreme rhetoric, especially when incumbents face
challengers from extreme wings of their party. Members adopt extreme rhetoric to fend off challengers,
and incumbents and challengers alike adopt language targeting party extremes rather than the general
election median voter.
We apply a novel method of using words as data to examine campaign rhetoric in 2014, and our
analysis reveals some sources of partisan discourse. Republican women were more extreme than
Republican men, possibly reflecting the importance of demonstrating party purity in the 2014
environment. Primary challengers affect the campaign rhetoric of incumbents’ campaign websites,
although the effects are different in each party. Primary challenges affected Democratic candidates’
14
rhetoric, particularly when the challenge came from the progressive wing of the party. Meanwhile, Tea
Party challengers are associated with more extreme conservative rhetoric by Republican incumbents.
However, primary challenges alone did not significantly affect Republican rhetoric. Rather, Republicans
became more partisan when a primary challenge occurred in heavily Republican districts. In other words,
in districts where Tea Party challengers were most likely to make claims that the incumbent was a
“Republican in Name Only” and not “conservative” enough for the district, primary challengers pushed
incumbents to adopt more extreme partisan rhetoric.
These findings probably reflect the nature of contemporary American politics as well as the
nature of the Republican success in 2014. Congress is starkly divided along partisan and ideological lines,
with a Republican Party more extreme than any major party in history. In such an environment, it made
sense for Democratic incumbents to become more partisan in the face of any primary challenge, locking
down their base before facing the Republican opponents. Republicans, however, were more concerned
with warding off Tea Party challenges that arose in more partisan districts. While incumbents generally
won their primaries, it was important for them to demonstrate their Republican credentials.
Normatively, competitive primaries can be viewed as a sign of healthy democratic competition.
However, in today’s polarized environment, primaries also appear to be contributing to a pattern of
partisan extremity in political rhetoric.
15
APPENDIX
FIGURE 1: Partisan Extremity Score Means by Candidates’ Self-identification within Party Categories
1.2
1.04
1
0.77
0.68
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.24
-0.4
-0.6
-0.8
-0.51
-0.72
-1
Progressive
Democrats
(n=95)
Establishment
Democrats
(n=164)
Moderate
Democrats
(n=34)
Conservative
Republicans
(n=89)
Business
Republicans
(n=138)
Tea Party
Republicans
(n=85)
Note: Partisan categories produced by Kamarck and Podkul, 2014.
FIGURE 2: Partisan Extremity Score Means by Party, Incumbency, and Race-Type
1.02
1.1
0.95
0.9
0.7
0.49
0.5
0.3
0.1
-0.1
-0.3
-0.5
-0.39
-0.29
-0.7
-0.9
-0.78
Democrats
Incumbent
Republicans
Challenger, open seat
Challenger, held seat
16
FIGURE 3: Partisan Extremity Score Means by Party and Gender.
0.9
1
0.8
0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
-0.2
-0.4
-0.48
-0.6
-0.8
-0.61
-1
Democrats
Republicans
Female
Male
FIGURE 4: Democratic Partisan Extremity Score means by partisan category and primary opponent
category.
0.88
0.73
-0.45
-0.61
Democrats
Contested primary
Republicans
No contested primary
17
FIGURE 5: Democratic Partisan Extremity Score means by partisan category and primary opponent
category.
0
-0.1
-0.2
-0.3
-0.4
-0.5
-0.48
-0.6
-0.63
-0.7
-0.73
-0.8
-0.82
-0.9
Non-progressive in general
Non-progressive challenge
Progressive winner
Progressive challenge
FIGURE 6: Republican Partisan Extremity Score means by partisan category and primary opponent
category.
1.2
1.1
1
0.8
1.1
0.9
0.76
0.6
0.4
0.2
0
Non-Tea Party in general
Non-Tea Party challenge
Tea Party in general
Tea Party Challenge
18
Figure 7: Partisan Extremity on candidate and district features, by party
Democrats
Republicans
Unstandardized Coefficient
Unstandardized Coefficient
(Std. error)
(Std. error)
537**
(Constant)
-.274**
(.079)
(.079)
.270**
Incumbency
-.310**
(.110)
(.116)
.182*
Female
-.079
(.109)
(.084)
.041
GOP Margin
.261
(.173)
(.169)
.115
Contested Primary
-.185**
(.080)
(.078)
.582**
Margin * Contested
.083
(.189)
(.189)
R2
.133
.147
Above: Results from an OLS regression analysis where the dependent variable is Partisan Extremity
Score, with higher scores indicating more “Republican” rhetoric. *p<.10, **p<.05
19
REFERENCES
Ansobelehere, Stephen, James M. Snyder and Charles Stewart 2001 “Candidate Positioning in U.S.
House Elections” American Journal of Political Science 45: 136-59
Brady, David W., Hahrie Han and Jeremy C. Pope. “Primary Elections and Candidate Ideology” Legislative
Studies Quarterly (2007): 79-105.
Burden, Barry. “Candidate Positioning in U.S. Congressional Elections.” British Journal of Political Science
(2004): 211-227
Druckman, James N., Martin J. Kifer and Michael Parkin. “Campaign Communications in U.S.
Congressional Elections.” American Political Science Review 103(3) (2009): 343-366.
Druckman, James N., Martin J. Kifer and Michael Parkin. “Timeless Strategy Meets New Medium: Going
Negative on Congressional Campaign Websites, 2002-2006.” Political Communication 27 (2010): 88-103.
Hare, Christopher and Keith T. Poole. “Partisan Polarization and American Democracy.” Polity 46 (2014):
411-429.
Jacobs, Lawrence R., and Robert Y. Shapiro. “Issues, Candidate Image, and Priming: The Use of Private
Polls in Kennedy’s 1960 Presidential Campaign.” American Political Science Review 88 (1994): 527–40.
Kamarck, Elaine C. and Alexander R. Podkul. “The 2014 Congressional Primaries: Who Ran and Why.”
Brookings Center For Effective Public Management, 2014.
King, David. “Congress, Polarization, and Fidelity to the Median Voter” Unpublished Manuscript. Kennedy
School of Government - Harvard University (2001).
Lawless, Jennifer L and Kathryn Pearson. “The Primary Reason for Women's Underrepresentation?
Reevaluating the Conventional Wisdom.” Journal of Politics 70 (2008): 67–82.
Mann, Thomas E. and Norman J. Ornstein. It’s Even Worse Than It Looks. New York: Basic Books, 2012.
Mason, Lilliana. ‘“I Disrespectfully Agree”: The Differential Effects of Partisan Sorting on Social and Issue
Polarization.” American Journal of Political Science 59(1) (2014): 128-145.
Pearson, Kathryn and Jennifer L. Lawless. “Primary Competition and Polarization in the U.S. House of
Representatives.” Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association,
Chicago, Illinois, 2008.
Poole, Keith T., and Howard Rosenthal. Congress: A Political Economic History of Roll Call Voting. New
York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
20