There has been somewhat of a renaissance of late in the study of primary elections. In most such studies, however, the Senate is an afterthought. Aaron S. King’s Unfolding Ambition in Senate Primary Elections is therefore a welcome addition to the literature.
King’s book has two major purposes: he seeks to understand competition in Senate primaries, and he discusses ways primaries might be changed to provide better representation for citizens. King’s book is mostly presented as an updating of the political ambition literature of the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. He draws on an original dataset of all Senate candidates from 1994 to 2010 to explore who runs, when candidates begin their campaigns, and who succeeds in Senate primaries. The book provides a wealth of new information about Senate primary elections, and it demonstrates that Senate primaries are quite distinct from primaries for other offices.
Many analyses of presidential elections make reference to the “invisible primary,” the period in which prospective candidates evaluate their chances and determine whether to mount a campaign. Studies of congressional candidacies occasionally discuss the pool of potential candidates, but it is rare for analyses of these campaigns to trace the process by which potential candidates become actual candidates. In the early chapters, King presents a game-theoretical model that shows how candidates’ perceived probability of success varies over the course of the race, a variant on the chicken game, and an extension of the chain store paradox. These models are used to present hypotheses about when candidates will enter the race.
Chapters 4–6 emphasize the interplay of “campaign potential” and “uncertainty” (p. 23) in determining whether candidates run and when they announce their campaigns. In other words, candidates ask both whether they can win and whether their ability to win would be harmed if others entered the race. King standardizes the time frame for these decisions across states, and he then develops hazard models that show that more experienced candidates who begin their campaigns early are more likely to win the race than are similar candidates who enter later; the variation in success for less experienced candidates who enter races earlier is not as pronounced (although these candidates are less likely to win the nomination, regardless of the timing of their entry). These effects hold true even when controlling for fundraising, party, or the presence of an incumbent in the race.
The book then turns to the subject of strategic retirements. There is a well-established literature on this topic, but for the most part this work has not been well integrated with the political ambition literature. King points out that in the case of retirements there is a “tension between individual and collective goals” (p. 138). Senators may not announce their retirements at the optimal time for their parties or other candidates, and there are instances when a poorly timed retirement decision cost the senator’s party a seat. It is hard to determine whether candidates are sincere in their stated reasons for retirement, but King does show how different sorts of retirement decisions affect the calculus for other potential candidates.
King closes with a variety of proposed reforms that might enhance primary competition. He argues that Senate primaries might be more competitive if federal and state elections were separated or candidates were able to run simultaneously for more than one office. Both changes would lower the price paid by primary losers. Likewise, he argues that there are also less formal, more cultural ways in which the stigma of losing might be reduced, thus encouraging more people to run. There would be many side effects to such changes; we know, for instance, that when state and federal elections are separated, turnout plummets in state elections. Nonetheless, King should be given some credit for thinking outside of the box.
The data King has collected cover a particularly important era in congressional politics. Included in these data are the six years where the Senate worked in tandem with the Gingrich-era House, the almost evenly split congresses of the early Bush administration, the narrow Democratic majority that arose in Bush’s final years, and the filibuster-proof Democratic majority of Barack Obama’s first term. King’s case studies mostly come from elections that took place during Barack Obama’s second term, and the text alludes to the 2016 election. It is evident today that the Senate operates quite differently than it did in the early 1990s. Instead of considering the elections of this period in the aggregate, King could have explored the changes that took place in the Senate during the years he covers.
It is evident, as well, that political parties play a major role in candidate recruitment and in clearing the field in Senate primaries. King mentions the role of parties a few times, but the focus of his book is on candidates’ political ambition. Perhaps the role of parties has changed over the time period considered here, and a more direct focus on party and interest group endorsements or a careful consideration of fundraising would have enabled King to better integrate parties into his story. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee’s well-publicized struggles in candidate recruitment for 2020 suggest not only that the party plays a greater role than King suggests but also that the role of the party has been influenced both by the broader political environment and by the changes in public opinion toward Congress that he documents in the book.
Likewise, King rarely distinguishes between winnable and unwinnable Senate primaries. He notes several times that there are important differences in candidates’ backgrounds and reasons for running. Some candidates may not really be running to win; they may, instead, want to increase their name recognition for other purposes, or they may sincerely care about some of the issues they raise. Although longshot candidates do sometimes win, the races that the party campaign committees care about and those that they do not may well be so categorically different that they should not be included in the same analyses.
King seeks to illustrate some of his points with a variety of case studies and shorter examples. In chapter 6 he provides a detailed case study of how the primaries for the 2010 Florida Senate race unfolded. This race took an unusual turn because the state’s governor (Charlie Crist) chose to run as an independent candidate. Crist’s decision led not only to a three-way general election race but also to changes in competition for several different statewide offices. This was not a typical Senate race, but then again, perhaps there is no such thing. The book provides several other anecdotes, but readers looking for stories about primaries that exemplify the patterns in King’s data may be somewhat frustrated.
Despite these missed opportunities, King has provided us with the most comprehensive consideration to date of how Senate primary competition develops, and he offers an important extension of the political ambition literature to cover contemporary Senate primaries. This book will be a valuable resource for scholars for years to come.
