Yea or Nay: Do Legislators Benefit by Voting Against Their Party?

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Abstract

This article asks whether legislators are able to reap electoral benefits from opposing their party on one or more high-profile issues. Using data from a national survey in which citizens are asked their own positions on seven high-profile issues voted on by the U.S. Senate, as well as how they believe their state's two senators have voted on these issues, I find that senators generally do not benefit from voting against their party. Specifically, when a senator deviates from her party, the vast majority of out-partisans nonetheless persist in believing that the senator voted with her party anyhow; and while the small minority of out-partisans who are aware of her deviation are indeed more likely to approve of and vote for such a senator, there are simply too few of these correctly informed citizens for it to make a meaningful difference for the senator's overall support.

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APA

Donnelly, C. P. (2019). Yea or Nay: Do Legislators Benefit by Voting Against Their Party? Legislative Studies Quarterly, 44(3), 421–453. https://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12233

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