The benefits and burdens of congressional primary elections

When studying who wins and who loses races for the U.S. House of Representatives, the general election is rarely placed into a context of a larger election cycle. The general election needs to be examined in relation to the primary election in order to understand more completely the relative advantages or disadvantages that candidates bring with them to the general election. In this dissertation I explore the potential benefits and burdens that primaries have on candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives in the 1994 elections. Using two original data sets, this dissertation explores the ways in which primary divisiveness, primary spending and the placement of the primary in the election cycle ultimately influence the outcome of the general election. Focusing specifically on candidates' primary election resource expenditures I test whether candidates spend significant sums of money on their primaries; whether primary spending depletes the resources that candidates would have spent on the general election; and whether primary divisiveness and primary spending leave any lasting impact on candidates' ability to win the general election. The results suggest that though incumbent, challenger and open seat candidates with competitive primaries spend more money to fight their primaries than their unchallenged or underchallenged counterparts, the potentially negative effects of these expenditures do not influence the outcome of the general election. The level of primary divisiveness, however, significantly influences the general election and does so differently depending on the type of candidate. Challengers are the clearest beneficiaries of primary competition; the more divisive the challenger's primary the better they perform in the general election. Since they typically lack experience, name recognition and legitimacy, the primary provides an opportunity for challengers to improve their standing. In contrast, incumbents have experience running for office, have name recognition in their districts, and have resources to communicate their messages to voters. They do not need the primary election to help them complete these tasks. If challengers receive the most benefits from primaries, incumbents are surely the most burdened. Finally, open seat candidates are assisted by primary competition though not as dramatically as challengers. In a system where incumbents have endless advantages, primary election competition appears to offer challengers and open seat candidates an opportunity to become more competitive candidates. Primaries appear to be one of the few "incumbent disadvantages.".