This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: In most of the nation's 435 congressional districts, the general election is not much of a contest. With the vast majority of U.S.
House seats considered safe for one party or the other, the primary usually determines who goes to Congress—and it is the election Americans know the least about. A new book co-authored by a researcher at the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania finds that voters are rarely the most important influence on the outcome. "Parties on the Ground: A Study of Nominations for the House of Representatives" finds that the organized groups anchoring each party's coalition do the work of vetting candidates, coordinating behind them and supplying the money and volunteers a nomination requires.
Their goal, the authors find, is not ideological purity but reliable representation: a nominee who will faithfully represent their interests. Which groups those are varies tremendously from district to district. In one race, the decisive player may be the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce or a national feminist organization; in another, it may be a network of local Tea Party or faith-based activists, a building-trades union or a county physicians' group. Across the 55 nominations the authors studied, the most important players were a wide cross section of the country's interest and activist groups—not a standing national slate acting on either party's behalf. "This book is what happened when we went and watched nominations on the ground," said co-author Kathleen Bawn, professor of political science at UCLA.
"What groups told us is that they were looking for someone they considered 'one of us'—someone who would pick up the phone and do the work of championing their interests." In addition to Bawn, the book was co-authored by Knox Brown, assistant professor of political science at Tulsa Community College; Angela X. Ocampo, assistant professor of social and cultural analysis at the University of Texas at Austin; Shawn Patterson Jr., a research analyst at APPC; John L. Ray, senior director of polling for YouGov Blue at YouGov; and John Zaller, professor emeritus of political science at UCLA.
The study examined all 55 winnable open-seat House nominations in the 2013–14 election cycle, drawing on 346 field interviews, a content analysis of local newspaper coverage, campaign finance data and exit surveys of voters in four contests. The book finds that: Primaries are notoriously difficult to study. They are held at different times, under different rules, in hundreds of separate places, and the influence of local leaders varies widely from district to district.
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