Stephen J. Stambough

Republican Lambs and the Democratic Pipeline: Partisan Differences in the Nomination of Female Gubernatorial Candidates

In 2005, a record nine women served as their states governor. Of these, eight were elected. A crucial and often difficult step for women to be successful in gubernatorial elections is for them to win the nomination for governor by their political party. From 1976 to 2004, only 79 women have won their partys nomination for governor. The record number of women nominees in a single year is 10, set in 1998 and 2002. Even with these recent successes, women as governors are both fairly rare and an understudied area of political science. In this study, we explore two different explanations for the nomination of women to elected office: the pipeline and sacrificial lamb models. Although some research argues that the sacrificial lamb model is outdated and has been replaced by the pipeline model, we find that both of these models are relevant for the study of female gubernatorial nominations, but in the same way for each political party. By examining gubernatorial election data from 1976 to 2004, we present evidence suggesting that the pipeline model helps to explain the nomination of Democratic women, while the sacrificial lamb model helps to explain the nomination of Republican women. Though preliminary, these findings have important implications for the growing, pro-Democratic, partisan imbalance of women officeholders.

The Novelty Impact: The Politics of Trailblazing Women in Gubernatorial Elections

Although women candidates for public office have experienced greater success recently, women candidates for executive offices are still considered to be a novelty in much of the country. This study examines the electoral impact of novelty status for female gubernatorial candidates. We propose that the novelty of female gubernatorial candidates negatively affects the level of support women candidates receive from voters and their likelihood of winning the gubernatorial election. We develop the concept of novelty status and test its impact on female gubernatorial candidates by examining female-male gubernatorial elections from 1980 to 2006. Our findings suggest that novelty status negatively impacts the success of women candidates for governor. These results are important as we continue to develop our understanding of the barriers women face when they seek elective office and how this situation might change when a womans candidacy is no longer considered a novel event.

Toward stability in presidential forecasting: the development of a multiple indicator model

Most election forecasting models rely on single indicators for such complex variables as the health of the economy, yet each employs different indicators for the identical concept. This article argues that single indicator models are inappropriately dependent upon past correlations, leading to inflated goodness of fit measures and unstable future forecasting success. We develop a multiple indicator model whose performance favorably compares with that of other models and provides additional forecasting stability by addressing the single indicator problem.

Term limits and women’s representation: a Democratic opportunity and a Republican dead-end

ABSTRACT When legislative term limits were proposed, one expected impact was an increase in women’s legislative representation. However, researchers have found that this logical solution is not as effective as many had hoped. Because of findings of a partisan gap in the pipeline of potential female candidates, we argue that studies must consider the partisanship of the female legislators when analyzing the effect of term limits on increasing the number of female state legislators. This study utilizes a cross-sectional time-series analysis of 49 states from 1990 to 2014. Our analyses suggest that Democratic women benefit from term limits while Republican women do not.