David Karol

A Theory of Political Parties: Groups, Policy Demands and Nominations in American Politics

We propose a theory of political parties in which interest groups and activists are the key actors, and coalitions of groups develop common agendas and screen candidates for party nominations based on loyalty to their agendas. This theoretical stance contrasts with currently dominant theories, which view parties as controlled by election-minded politicians. The difference is normatively important because parties dominated by interest groups and activists are less responsive to voter preferences, even to the point of taking advantage of lapses in voter attention to politics. Our view is consistent with evidence from the formation of national parties in the 1790s, party position change on civil rights and abortion, patterns of polarization in Congress, policy design and nominations for state legislatures, Congress, and the presidency.

The Electoral Cost of War: Iraq Casualties and the 2004 U.S. Presidential Election

Many contend that President Bushs reelection and increased vote share in 2004 prove that the Iraq War was either electorally irrelevant or aided him. We present contrary evidence. Focusing on the change in Bushs 2004 showing compared to 2000, we discover that Iraq casualties from a state significantly depressed the Presidents vote share there. We infer that were it not for the approximately 10,000 U.S. dead and wounded by Election Day, Bush would have won nearly 2% more of the national popular vote, carrying several additional states and winning decisively. Such a result would have been close to forecasts based on models that did not include war impacts. Casualty effects are largest in “blue” states. In contrast, National Guard/Reservist call-ups had no impact beyond the main casualty effect. We discuss implications for both the election modeling enterprise and the debate over the “casualty sensitivity” of the U.S. public.

Does Constituency Size Affect Elected Officials' Trade Policy Preferences?

Scholars have long argued that Presidents are less protectionist than Congress while Senators are less so than Representatives due to their larger constituencies. Yet until now this theory has escaped scrutiny. I argue that it is based on a misguided view of trade policy as distributive politics. I show via a series of tests that the theory is untenable. Unlike their differences in constituency size, the pro-trade leanings of the Presidency and Senate are postwar phenomena. Even now state size is unrelated to Senators’ votes on trade. In tests pooling legislators from both Houses, chamber membership predicts votes while constituency size generally does not. Senators are even less protectionist than Representatives with identical constituencies.

Party Versus Faction in the Reformed Presidential Nominating System

Political scientists have devoted vastly more attention to general presidential elections than to party nominations for president. This emphasis might be reasonable if parties could be counted on to nominate generic representatives of their traditions. But it is clear that they cannot. Since the party reforms of the 1970s, regulars like Bill Clinton, Bob Dole, and Al Gore have sometimes won fairly easy nominations, but outsider candidates like Jimmy Carter and Howard Dean have made strong runs or even won. 2016 has produced extremes of both types: ultimate regular Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side and far outsider Donald Trump on the Republican side. It seems, moreover, that party regulars are having more difficulty in recent cycles than they did in the 1980s and 1990s. There is therefore some urgency to the question: when and why do party regulars tend to win nominations? We examine this question from the point of view of two well-known studies, Nelson Polsby’s Consequences of Party Reform and our own, The Party Decides . The former explains why incentives built into the reformed system of presidential nominations make outsider and factional candidates like Trump likely. The latter argues that, following the factional nominations of the 1970s, party leaders learned to steer nominations to insider favorites. This article uses the logic of these studies to argue that major trends over the past two decades – the rise of new political media, the flood of early money into presidential nominations, and the conflict among party factions – have made it easier for factional candidates and outsiders to challenge elite control of nominations.

Political Parties in Rough Weather

Though lightly regarded by many observers, political parties have been able to steer presidential nominations to insider favorites in all nine of the contested cases from 1980 to 2000. Democrats had more trouble in 2004, but still managed to avoid insurgent Howard Dean. This paper explains how todays presidential parties -- understood as coalitions of elected officials, interest and advocacy groups, and ideological activists -- have learned to work together in the so-called Invisible Primary to affect the outcome of the state-by-state primaries and caucuses. The paper concludes with a discussion of the influence of parties in the pre-Iowa phase of the 2008 nominations.

Forcing Their Hands? Campaign Finance Law, Retirement Announcements and the Rise of the Permanent Campaign in U.S. Senate Elections

Congressional retirement decisions affect representation and campaigns. They have long interested scholars. Yet the timing of retirement announcements has not been explored. In an analysis dating to 1920 based on an original data set, I show that U.S senators now announce their retirements far earlier in their final term than they once did. Beyond documenting this little-noted trend, I propose and assess explanations for these findings, focusing on changes in campaign finance law. I discuss implications for representation and the growth of the “permanent campaign.”

US Presidential Election 2016

As the race to succeed Barack Obama intensifies, David Karol takes a look at the defining issues of next years US presidential election, the electoral process and the leading contenders.