Candidate quality and US Senate elections

ABSTRACT

We find that candidate quality is a key determinant of US Senate election outcomes. We model the results for the last 10 US Senate election cycles, from 2012 back to 1994, for a total of 345 election contests. For the contests where an incumbent seeks re-election, a quality challenger can significantly diminish the advantage that usually attaches to incumbency. For the open-seat contests, which tend to be more competitive, candidate quality can swing a close election. Governors who seek election to the US Senate receive the largest boost, as indicated by our candidate-quality variables vector. Wave effects and presidential coattail effects are also shown to be contributing factors in certain cases.

KEYWORDS:

• Incumbancy
• US Senate
• open-seat elections
• campaign
• spending

JEL CLASSIFICATION:

• D72
• D79

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Corrigendum

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ Committee membership was modelled separately because service as committee chair was already included in the model.

² In both cases, the Republican candidate was a big-spending business tycoon with no elective-office experience.