Electoral Competition and Legislator Effectiveness

How do legislators respond to electoral competition? We consider this question by looking at the relationship between legislative productivity and the competitiveness of legislators’ primary and general elections. Building on Volden and Wiseman’s preliminary investigation of the electoral connection to legislative productivity, we introduce to that analysis the critical and often-overlooked distinction between primary and general election competitiveness. Employing panel data of U.S. House members spanning three decades (1979-2009), we find significant evidence of a positive relationship between primary vote share and legislative effectiveness, much of which is explained by having primary opposition at all. These results have substantial implications for our understanding of both the electoral connection and legislative behavior