Those calling for an end to partisan primaries point out that primary voters are typically ideologically driven and have a disproportionate influence on candidate nominations.
Yet they overlook one central feature of contemporary American politics: Congressional candidates are no longer emerging from the ideological center.
My research suggests that in recent years, the very small pool of people who run for Congress has become even shallower and the choices that voters face have become increasingly “extreme.”
I looked at why some state legislators run for Congress and others do not. State legislative office has long been considered to be the pipeline to congressional office, and state legislators offer a window into the likely makeup of the congressional candidate pool.
Using a new dataset created by Stanford University political scientist Adam Bonica, I found that between 2000 and 2010, ideologically moderate state legislators – with views resembling those of former Maine Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe or former Tennessee Democratic Rep. Bart Gordon, for example – were less likely to seek higher office than state legislators at the ideological poles.
Indeed, on the Republican side, the probability that a conservative state legislator like Paul Ryan, R-Wis., would run for Congress was more than nine times greater than that of a moderate state legislator like Snowe.
The disparity is smaller among Democratic state legislators, but the probability that a liberal state legislator like California Democrat Nancy Pelosi would run for Congress was still more than five times greater than that of a moderate like Gordon.
These trends are likely due in part to ideological changes in the American electorate. While the verdict is still out on whether the citizenry as a whole is polarized, most scholars agree that party activists and primary voters have become increasingly extreme over the past few decades. Even so, there is still some variation across congressional districts.
For example, data collected by political scientists Chris Tausanovitch of UCLA and Christopher Warshaw of MIT show that Republican partisans in New York’s 15th Congressional District are more liberal than Republican partisans in Washington’s 2nd Congressional District. Similarly, Democratic partisans in California’s 9th Congressional District are to the left of Democratic partisans in Oklahoma’s 2nd Congressional District.
If the decision to run for Congress reflected just a potential candidate’s expected chance of winning, we might expect to see moderate Republicans running in districts where Republican partisans are more liberal and moderate Democrats running in districts where Democratic partisans are more conservative.
However, there is little variation across congressional districts in terms of the ideological profile of candidates. Individuals like Snowe and Gordon just aren’t running – anywhere.
Of the congressional candidates who ran in 2010, only 3.3 percent of all Republican candidates and 8.5 percent of all Democratic candidates had ideology scores that were equally or more moderate than Snowe’s and Gordon’s, respectively.
And there is no shortage of moderates in the congressional pipeline, either. Between 2000 and 2010, 18 percent of Republican state legislators were at least as moderate as Snowe and 37 percent of Democratic state legislators were at least as moderate as Gordon.
One reason ideological moderates are no longer putting their hats into the ring is because they do not see a place for themselves in the contemporary congressional environment. Most likely, they think it would be an uphill battle to win the primary or the general election and, if elected, it would be difficult to pass their desired policies and all but impossible to gain an influential position in the party or the legislature.
Given the huge personal and professional costs associated with running for congressional office, who can blame moderates for staying on the political sidelines?
These trends do not bode well for the prospects of bipartisanship in Congress. The abstention of moderates from the candidate pool suggests that partisan polarization is here to stay.
If we want to change the current course of congressional policymaking and end the gridlock in Washington, a good first step would be to get moderates to run for Congress.
Danielle Thomsen is a post-doctoral fellow at Duke University and a member of the Scholars Strategy Network.
