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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 January 2013
The present is confusing because we do not really understand the past.
Our understandings of politics evolve. At one time – much of the first half of the 1900s– it was widely understood that presidential and House election results were closely tiedtogether. The partisan votes for presidential and House candidates in House districts were verysimilar, and we presumed that voting was primarily for a party and not individuals. Then in the1960s the relationship between presidential and House results declined. By the 1970s a newinterpretation emerged about what was dominating elections and how the presidential–Houseconnection was being altered. The conclusion was that House elections were becoming dominated byincumbency, elections were candidate-centered, and parties were of less relevance in voting choices.House incumbents were becoming more immune to shifts in partisan presidential electoral support inthe nation. The conventional wisdom quickly became that we were witnessing a diminished capabilityfor elections to simultaneously register voter sentiment in the institutions of the presidency andthe House.
[The House elections of the 1960s represent] a set of electoral arrangements that is…quiteunresponsive to shifts in the preferences of voters. (1973)
Incumbents have become quite effectively insulated from the electoral effects, for example, ofadverse presidential landslides. As a result, a once-notable phenomenon, the so-called coattailseffect, has virtually been eliminated. (1975)
The incumbency advantage in House races has increased to such a level during the last decade thatthe electoral outcomes for president and Congress have become virtually independent. (1983)
Voting in congressional elections has become detached from broad national currents reflectingreactions to the president and national issues and problems. (1985)
No matter which party wins the White House each four years, presidential elections seem to havelittle impact on the partisan balance in Congress. The discrepancy between presidential andcongressional election results is frequently attributed…to a decline in presidentialcoattails. (1995)
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