Reassessing the Decline of Presidential Coattails: U. S. House Elections from 1952-80

Few propositions in the congressional election literature generate as much consensus as the argument that presidential coattails have had a decreasing impact upon the electoral strength of congressional candidates. As we argue here, however, the basis for such a claim rests on inadequate supporting evidence. Sometimes the analytical perspective adopted by coattail studies has led the analysts astray: improper inferences about the strength of coattails have been made from findings of greater split-ticket voting by individual voters, or the researcher has concentrated too narrowly on the influence of the presidential race on House wins or losses alone. On the other hand, scholars taking the more appropriate perspective of the congressional candidate's election margin unfortunately have drawn conclusions about coattail change through reliance on faulty measurement strategies. Our own analysis of House races from 1952-80 leads us to challenge the conventional wisdom; we find that the district presidential vote has lost little of its ability to expand or contract House election margins over this twenty-eight-year period.