Electoral Vulnerability and Presidential Support in the House of Representatives

Abstract

This article investigates whether electoral vulnerability affects how a member of Congress behaves on presidential support votes. It argues that electorally vulnerable members of the House will be more responsive to their constituents’ views about the president. As a result, vulnerable members of Congress can be critical to the success or failure of the president’s legislative efforts. I investigate presidential support scores from 1993 to 2016 and find that electoral vulnerability conditions how members of Congress vote when the president takes a position on a bill. Even in today’s highly polarized and highly partisan Congress, the combination of electoral vulnerability and the president’s standing in members’ constituencies can cause members to cross party lines on presidential support votes.