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24 October 2005

Frisby on Term Limits

Do term limits alter the decisions made by challengers? This week in PPBW we hear about Tammy Frisby's paper on term limits and strategic candidate entry in state legislative elections. Here's the abstract:

In comparison to our considerable knowledge of strategic challenger entry behavior in U.S. House and Senate races, we know far less about how major party candidates make entry decisions in U.S. state legislative races. I use the last eligible reelection bids created by term limits on state legislators to test for strategic entry behavior in state House elections when prospective challengers have information about impending incumbent retirement. Analysis of races in four term limit states; California, Ohio, Florida, and Colorado; from 1996 to 2004 indicates that once long-time incumbents are turned out of office, prospective challengers do not adhere to our traditional expectations of strategic behavior. Instead of waiting to run for the open seat, prospective challengers are just as likely to run against last term legislators as other incumbents. I also fail to find evidence that would indicate last termers face weaker challengers; when they are contested, last termers do not enjoy larger margins of victory. The paperconcludes by considering how the lack of a last term effect across all districts could be hiding strategic entry behavior on the part of candidates and parties. While handled fully in the subsequent portion of the larger project, here I preview of a theory of strategic challengers and public information about incumbent retirement in state House races.

Posted by Barry Burden at October 24, 2005 10:03 AM