Economic Expectations and Voting Behavior in United States House and Senate Elections

Past individual-level studies of economic voting (1) have incorrectly operationalized the model they employ by using past-oriented rather than future-oriented questions and (2) have failed to examine the level of economic voting in United States Senate elections. Using the 1978 National Election Study, we show that economic voting exists in Senate but not House elections, presumably due to the differences in electoral context. Even when economic voting occurs, however, there is no guarantee that the public will influence the direction of macroeconomic policy.