Winners and Losers

A developing literature suggests that voters' evaluations of government, including overall trust in government, is directly related to whether they cast a ballot for the winning candidate. Anderson and LoTempio (2002) show that citizens who voted for the winning presidential candidate have significantly higher levels of overall trust in government relative to voters whose candidate lost the election (even after controlling for other factors that affect trust). Thus, evaluations of the government depend, in part, on election outcomes. However, Anderson and LoTempio find no relationship between votes for congressional candidates and overall trust in government, although this is likely because voters are more likely to think about the president than Congress when asked how much trust they have in the federal government.²

Clarke and Acock (1989) show that voting for the winning candidate in American elections increases voter efficacy as well.

These results are not unique to the American case. Anderson and Guillory (1997) demonstrate that a similar relationship exits in other advanced industrial democracies. Clarke and Kornberg (1992) show that winning voters in Canada have more positive evaluations of their members of parliament in terms of responsiveness to voters. This “winning effect” extends not only to voters, but also to the candidates who stand for election. Bowler and Donovan (2002) demonstrate that elites' attitudes toward electoral institutions are, in part, dependent on whether they win the election. Winning candidates, who have been delivered to parliament by the current electoral arrangement, are much more satisfied and committed to these institutions than are losing candidates.

Theory and Data

The theory driving this investigation is simple: citizens who vote for the winning candidate in a House election will be systematically more likely to have higher evaluations of said candidate relative to voters who vote for the losing candidate. Similarly, “winning” voters will have more positive and fewer negative things to say about their representative than “losing” voters. I test this proposition using the American National Election Study (ANES) cumulative file with survey data from 1948–2000, although the multivariate analysis only includes data from 1980 on, as some of the variables utilized in the analysis were not part of the survey until that time.

Implications

Based on these results, and since congressional districts are necessarily artificial constructs, there are clearly reasons to draw districts in such a manner as to increase efficacy and happiness with our government, particularly since Congress almost always has significantly lower approval ratings than the president, the Supreme Court, and state governments (see Hibbing and Smith 2001; Hibbing and Theiss-Morse 1995). Packing districts with like-minded partisans makes a great deal of sense, as long as both major political parties are packed to similar degrees. Drawing competitive districts or systematically “cracking”⁶

one party or the other is not beneficial and ought not be present in redistricting plans. Thus, what we think of typically as competitive districts (those with roughly equal numbers of Democrats and Republicans) provide negligible benefits and come with significant costs. One of the most significant benefits from drawing a legislative map with packed districts is that it makes it significantly more difficult to effect a map that constitutes a partisan gerrymander. Districting plans that dilute one party's vote must use a combination of packing and cracking to create a map that contains significant levels of partisan bias (i.e., where one party might win the statewide vote for the House, but still end up with fewer seats).

Preserving communities of interest is one of the main principles guiding map makers. Among these principles, preserving communities of interest is certainly the most ephemeral. What really constitutes a community of interest? Is any American city or county, really a community of interest? Sometimes—depending on the issue. A city is a unified community of interest when the issue is non-partisan, for example if the issue is obtainment of federal funds to repair bridges and roads, but it is not if the issue involves anything with ideological disagreement. Properly conceived, I argue, communities of interest should be composed entirely of either Democrats or Republicans (liberals or conservatives) in reflection of the primary cleavage in American politics (Poole and Rosenthal 1991). On controversial issues, ideological communities of interest will typically face issues in unison, increasing the likelihood that their representative will vote on legislation in Congress in congruence with the vast majority of their constituents. Citizens living in knife-edged districts cannot expect this kind of representation. Drawing districts to increase competitiveness in the general election only optimizes the number of voters that will be upset with their representation. Thus, not only do competitive districts not provide a social “good,” they actually increase dissatisfaction and make it less likely that voters' preferences are represented in government.

Drawing competitive districts also increases the volatility of the electoral system. If every district is a “50–50” district, then any small change in the voting behavior of the electorate could produce enormous changes in the partisan distribution of seats. While it is true, and oft-cited, that the Founders intended for the House to most closely mirror the wishes of the public, it is not reasonable to assume that they expected the institution to be hyper-sensitive to relatively small changes in the partisan leanings of the people. Districting this way also delivers a disproportionate share of the voting power to independents and moderate swing voters.⁷

A district that packs voters from both major parties equally into districts (i.e., the average district is either 80% Republican or 80% Democratic) has the added benefit of sending congressional delegations to the House that closely mirror the overall distribution of partisans in that state. A plan with many competitive districts can easily send a delegation to the House that is truly unreflective of the underlying partisan divisions in a state.

Some states, like Arizona,⁸

have passed laws or referenda specifying that a districting plan ought to maximize the number of competitive districts. This is not particularly surprising since the common wisdom among most voters and certainly among the media is that the House of Representatives does not have enough competitive districts currently, and that an increase in the number of competitive elections or in the amount of turnover in Congress will somehow enhance representation. There is absolutely no evidence that this is the case.⁹ In fact, maximizing competitive districts is harmful rather than beneficial in many respects. The most obvious effect of drawing cracked or competitive districts is to maximizes the number of voters who are dissatisfied with their representation.¹⁰ Second, a state that draws all or most of its districts in this knife-edged fashion increases the likelihood that small swings in voting behavior translate into large swings in the percentage of seats that one party can win in a single election. This can result in statewide representation that is widely incongruent with statewide partisanship, which, in turn, leads to voting behavior in the legislature that does not accurately represent the views of the constituents.

From a utilitarian perspective, the ideal congressional district is one populated entirely by people with the same political preferences. Such a constituency would see its wishes effectively translated into votes by their representative and this type of district assures that the representative will remain faithful to the voters through the threat of a primary challenge. Minimizing the ideological distance between the average voter and the likely representative fosters more effective representation and makes it easier for elected officials to discern our preferences, thus strengthening the bonds between the represented and representatives. Buchler (2005) develops this idea more formally and finds that homogeneous non-competitive districts “do a better job than competitive districts in achieving representative outcomes.” Further, these districts “produce legislators that are closer to their district medians and more representative of everyone in their district” (457).

The House of Representatives ought to be the closest of our national institutions to the people. We want the connection between the representative and the represented to be a close and faithful connection. The delegate theory of representation “posits that the representative ought to reflect purposively the preferences of his constituents” (McCrone and Kuklinski 1979, 278). Research on the connection between elected officials and the people that they represent has a long tradition in our discipline. Miller and Stokes's (1963) seminal piece on this subject called into question the ability of the representative to know what her constituents want, as well as the ability of the constituents to know and understand how the elected official is voting in Washington.

For example, Miller and Stokes (56) conclude: “The Representative has very imperfect information about the issue preferences of his constituency, and the constituency's awareness of the policy stands of the Representative ordinarily is slight.” While other scholars have pointed out some methodological concerns with the original Miller and Stokes study and have questioned the validity of some of their conclusions (see Erikson, Luttbeg, and Holloway 1975; Erikson 1978), there is very little doubt that these connections between the representative and the constituency could be much stronger. Creating packed ideological districts will necessarily strengthen these bonds. If a Democrat is sent to Congress from a district heavily populated by like-minded partisans, she will have little doubt as to how her constituents prefer her to vote on policy proposals. Similarly, creating more “winners” out of voters alleviates some of the uncertainty with respect to how the representative votes on their behalf. This will also serve to encourage representatives to be more responsive to constituent needs.

Elections serve as the main catalyst for keeping representatives faithful to their constituents. The threat of being replaced in a popular election incentivizes elected officials to respond to what their constituents want. A districting plan that maximizes the number of winners would clearly affect election outcomes. Most obvious is the likelihood that general election outcomes would not be particularly close. Districts packed with 80% or more of one party will deliver general election victories to the majority party in the district. Redistricting is already the oft-accused suspect of the decline of competition and turnover in the House of Representatives (Cox and Katz 2002; Hirsch 2003) and this type of plan may not help the current public image of this process. However, it is critical to keep in mind that general election competitiveness is neither a necessary nor sufficient condition for ideal representation. First, we utilize a two-stage process for electing members of Congress, where citizens are given the ability to choose, via a primary election, which candidate will represent their party in the general election.¹¹

Therefore, even in an 80–20 district, the incumbent can easily be removed if he fails his constituents. This type of districting plan encourages intra- rather than inter-party competition. By no means do homogeneous districts spell an end to electoral competition or responsiveness on the part of our elected officials. Increasing the relevancy of primaries may have other beneficial effects: turnout in primary elections might increase, the organized political parties may be more apt to get involved at the primary election stage, and more qualified candidates may choose to run against an incumbent in a primary. Another reason that incumbents, even in the absence of tough general election competition, will remain faithful to their constituents is that the specter of losing the next election is always prevalent in the minds of incumbents; this implied threat is what keeps our elected officials responsive.

There exists, I argue, sufficient uncertainty among elected officials with respect to their ability to win the next election which keeps them from behaving in ways that might contribute to a loss. My argument is not novel. David Mayhew wrote in 1974 that: “It is possible to conceive of an assembly in which no member ever comes close to losing a seat but in which the need to be reelected is what inspires members' behavior. It would be an assembly with no saints or fools in it, an assembly packed with skilled politicians going about their business” (37). In Unsafe at any Margin Thomas Mann (1978) argued that congressional elections were becoming less nationalized and election outcomes depended heavily upon what the voters in each district thought of their representative. “Candidate saliency is a double-edged sword for incumbents; while it can mean an enormous advantage in visibility over challengers, it can also spell disaster if the voters come to believe that their representative has some personal failing” (103).

The lack of turnover in the U.S. Congress should not be used as an indication that our federal institutions are failing as components of a democracy. While I am not arguing that stagnation is the signature of a perfectly health democracy, I do not see rapid replacement of incumbents as a necessary part of a truly representative institution. Indeed, if we want rapid turnover in our legislature, then term limits are a vastly more effective method of producing this outcome than drawing competitive districts. Many 50–50 districts end up with an incumbent who can use the perks of the office to leverage what might have been a competitive district in one election into a very safe seat for many successive elections.

One common objection to this method of districting is that it would add to the polarization in Congress by creating overwhelmingly Republican (Democratic) districts that are more likely to elect very conservative (liberal) members. This is an empirical question that is easily addressed. The question is whether members who win by large margins are more extreme than their colleagues who win by relatively small margins. Figure 1 plots member ideology by vote percentage for the years 1952–2000. The x-axis represents the Democratic proportion of the vote, so very small values indicate Republican victors by very large margins. The closer one moves toward the vertical line at .5, the more competitive the elections. The data on the far right side of the graph (those data points near 1.0) are districts in which the Democrat won by very large margins. The solid line is the predicted values from a quadratic regression and the shaded regions represent the 95% confidence region. If so-called safe seats elected more ideologically extreme members we would expect the predicted lines to slope downward for the Democrats as we move along the x-axis toward 1. The line is more or less straight with a slight upward slope (driven mainly by uncontested elections). For the Republicans we would expect the line to be much higher (i.e., more conservative NOMINATE scores) for values close to 0 relative to values close to .5. The predicted line here is completely flat. Thus, as the margin of victory increases for members to the U.S. House, we seen no real change in the ideology of the members who are elected.¹²

Thus, there is no reason to expect that packing districts on the basis of ideology will have any influence on the ideology of the House as a whole.

Example

Imagine a state with sufficient population for two congressional districts. The state is perfectly segregated from east to west in terms of partisanship with all Democrats living in the western half of the state and all Republicans living in the eastern half. Further assume that the number of Democrats and Republicans is exactly equal. Given the restrictions of equal population, contiguity, and compactness there are still many different ways in which to cut the state into two districts. Consider three different scenarios.

The first is a line bisecting the state from east to west creating two 50–50 districts. If a state preferred “competitive districts” this would be the most efficient method. From the outset, it is non-controversial to say that this state should elect, and is best represented by, one Democrat and one Republican. But by creating two competitive districts this significantly increases the odds that one party can sweep the state even with just a very small shift in voting behavior. If the Democrats run a particularly effective campaign and swing 1% of the vote statewide, this leaves nearly half the state with no ideological representation in the House. Furthermore, even if the election outcome delivered one seat to each party, this still leaves roughly half the state unsatisfied with their own representative because of the way in which the districts were drawn.

Second, we draw two districts, each of which is 75% one party and 25% the other. This would create districts that are beyond the bounds of “competitiveness” insofar as the favored party ought to have little trouble electing a candidate of their choice. The overall representation will mirror the statewide breakdown, but this districting plan also leaves a quarter of the state unsatisfied with their representative and less likely to feel efficacious with respect to electing members of Congress.

Last, we bisect the state from north to south, creating two homogeneous partisan districts. Here too the state's representation will mirror the overall partisanship of the state, and all citizens end up voting for a representative that they like and are more likely to highly value the job that their Representative does in the House. These districts will elect people neither less responsive to the wishes of the electorate, nor more extreme in their partisan leanings than any other configuration of districts.

Impact on Traditional Redistricting Principles

The decennial task of redrawing district lines for U.S. House elections is always a bitterly partisan affair. Since redrawing the maps is done at the state level, district lines depend in large part upon which party controls the state legislature and the governorship. However, many districting plans, regardless of the partisan composition of the state government, end up being litigated over a variety of issues.

The first principle used to guide map makers is equal population. Courts have often tossed out maps that have even the slightest deviation in population across districts within a state (the original federal district court decision in the Vieth v. Pennsylvania is a good example). This stems from the one person-one vote principle outlined in two 1964 Supreme Court decisions (Reynolds v. Sims and Wesberry v. Sanders). Packing districts with partisans would not violate this guideline.

Second, districts must be contiguous, which is to say that every point in the district must touch an adjacent point. Districts cannot be made up piecemeal across the state. Again, contiguity could easily be preserved with the method outlined in this paper.

Third, districts are supposed to be compact. Compactness is, at least in part, in the eye of the beholder. A compact district tends to be one whose shape is pleasing to the eye, which is to say, a reasonably shaped polygon. However, oftentimes a district may look like a bug splat on the windshield of a car. Compactness is rarely an issue in court, although it can be, depending upon the judge or judges involved. Creating packed partisan districts may tend to involve drawing districts that are less pleasing to the eye and less compact, although this is a relatively small price to pay for the benefits of having districts in which most voters are winners.

Fourth, map makers strive to “preserve communities of interest.” This may be the single most fleeting guideline in district drawing. What constitutes a community of interest? A city? A county? Any geographic region marked by even the slightest bit of partisan diversity is not a community of interest. A county with a significant population cannot really be thought of as a community of interest on any issue other than one that affects the community directly in a clearly positive or negative way (i.e., putting a nuclear storage facility in the county, or a federal grant to the county to improve roads). Typically in court, competing maps try to quantify the preservation of communities of interest by counting the number of city and county splits or segments (Plan A splits four of the 26 counties into separate districts, Plan B splits six of the 26 counties, etc.). In court, protecting communities of interest generally devolves into a beauty contest to see which map can keep as many counties and municipalities whole. As I argued above, communities of interest are better thought of in terms of overall ideological congruence among citizens, rather than in geographic considerations. Thus, the overall compactness of districts, at times, will be sacrificed if this method were used, but again, geography should not be a sacred cow in the redistricting process.¹³

Lani Guinier is a vocal critic of the single-member district system widely used in American elections. Guinier and I agree that using geography as one of the central principles for drawing districts is often harmful rather than beneficial. She writes:

Where Guinier and I depart company is the necessity of wasting votes in a single-member district system. I advocate that we minimize the number of wasted votes, which makes her distinction between dominant and nondominant groups less important as the nondominant group is redrawn from several districts into their own district in which they are dominant (and a new nondominant group is not created). Her underlying concern is identical to mine—“votes lose significance because they are consistently cast for political losers.”

The Voting Rights Act implicates all the states under Section 2 and many of the states under Section 5 in terms of election law. The Thornburg v. Gingles decision ruled that districting plans must take care to ensure that minority votes are not systematically diluted, although subsequent decisions have held that race cannot be used as the predominant factor in drawing districts (Shaw v. Reno; Bush v. Vera). Packing districts on the basis of ideology would not interfere with districting plans satisfying the requirements of the Voting Rights Act. In fact, using ideology rather than race, but still preserving the ability of protected minorities to have a reasonable opportunity to elect a candidate of their choice, would be relatively easy to accomplish.