Want to know who will win? Check district's partisan affiliations
By John Gear
Published October 17th 2000 in Lansing State Journal
John Gear of East Lansing, Michigan is a policy analyst with the Center for Voting and Democracy. His column appeared in the Lansing State Journal on October 17, 2000
Will Rogers said it best: "It's not what you don't know that hurts you -- it's what you know for sure that's wrong."
Campaign "common sense" says that big money controls who wins Congressional seats. One leading campaign finance reform advocate says "In most congressional districts in the country, the election has already been decided, because incumbents have such a huge financial advantage." If only it was that simple!
At the Center for Voting and Democracy, we study how voting systems affect representation and participation. We study factors that decide elections and make people feel their vote matters -- or doesn't. If political reporting worked like sports or science news (where dramatic upsets and startling new discoveries get big headlines), our work would be front page news in the papers and discussed on every talk show.
Because what we have shown in our Monopoly Politics reports (available at www.fairvote.org) is that, on money and politics, the conventional wisdom is simply wrong.
What our studies show is this: rather than deciding races, money generally flows where donor/investors know the outcome has already been decided by incumbency and the partisan tilt in most districts. Thus, the "foregone conclusion" nature of most House races does not result primarily from campaign finance inequities.
In other words, there is a reason that the British House of Lords, with its lifetime appointments, has more turnover than the U.S. Congress. But that reason isn't money -- it's that the parties get to draw the districts, which lets them choose precisely which voters will be allowed to choose candidates in November.
How do we know? Simple. We put the conventional wisdom ("Money decides who wins Congressional races") to the test. We said that, if we could build a model that ignores money but still predicts elections accurately, then we know that money isn't the factor everyone thinks it is.
So the acid test is this: the better we can predict the winners in Congressional races while ignoring money the more it says money isn't the key factor. And if, without considering money, our model falls flat, then campaign finances really is decisive. Remember, the only things our model uses are the partisan tilt of the each district and the presence of an incumbent.
Our results? For the last three elections, we have predicted, with very great accuracy, an amazingly high percentage of Congressional winners -- and even their victory margins! If money ruled, we wouldn't be able to ignore it and still have a prediction record that would awe Vegas oddsmakers.
When we focus exclusively on campaign finance reform we're tilting at windmills, mistaking them for dragons, while missing more significant causes of no-choice elections. As we have shown, what's really bedeviling us are winner-take-all, single-member districts, which parties draw with exquisite care to produce the results they want. There's no Constitutional basis for it, and Congress can change it. First though, we have to let go of ideas we're sure are correct -- but really aren't.
Will Rogers said it best: "It's not what you don't know that hurts you -- it's what you know for sure that's wrong."
Campaign "common sense" says that big money controls who wins Congressional seats. One leading campaign finance reform advocate says "In most congressional districts in the country, the election has already been decided, because incumbents have such a huge financial advantage." If only it was that simple!
At the Center for Voting and Democracy, we study how voting systems affect representation and participation. We study factors that decide elections and make people feel their vote matters -- or doesn't. If political reporting worked like sports or science news (where dramatic upsets and startling new discoveries get big headlines), our work would be front page news in the papers and discussed on every talk show.
Because what we have shown in our Monopoly Politics reports (available at www.fairvote.org) is that, on money and politics, the conventional wisdom is simply wrong.
What our studies show is this: rather than deciding races, money generally flows where donor/investors know the outcome has already been decided by incumbency and the partisan tilt in most districts. Thus, the "foregone conclusion" nature of most House races does not result primarily from campaign finance inequities.
In other words, there is a reason that the British House of Lords, with its lifetime appointments, has more turnover than the U.S. Congress. But that reason isn't money -- it's that the parties get to draw the districts, which lets them choose precisely which voters will be allowed to choose candidates in November.
How do we know? Simple. We put the conventional wisdom ("Money decides who wins Congressional races") to the test. We said that, if we could build a model that ignores money but still predicts elections accurately, then we know that money isn't the factor everyone thinks it is.
So the acid test is this: the better we can predict the winners in Congressional races while ignoring money the more it says money isn't the key factor. And if, without considering money, our model falls flat, then campaign finances really is decisive. Remember, the only things our model uses are the partisan tilt of the each district and the presence of an incumbent.
Our results? For the last three elections, we have predicted, with very great accuracy, an amazingly high percentage of Congressional winners -- and even their victory margins! If money ruled, we wouldn't be able to ignore it and still have a prediction record that would awe Vegas oddsmakers.
When we focus exclusively on campaign finance reform we're tilting at windmills, mistaking them for dragons, while missing more significant causes of no-choice elections. As we have shown, what's really bedeviling us are winner-take-all, single-member districts, which parties draw with exquisite care to produce the results they want. There's no Constitutional basis for it, and Congress can change it. First though, we have to let go of ideas we're sure are correct -- but really aren't.