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Title: Are Changing Constituencies Driving Rising Polarization in the U.S. House of Representatives?

Citation Type: Miscellaneous

Publication Year: 2015

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Abstract: The level of partisan polarization in the U.S. Congress is higher now than at any time since the Civil War. Although some view polarization as a normal outcome of the political struggle between left and right, it can also have undesirable effects; for example, the fiscal cliff and government shutdown scenarios. For this and many other reasons, political polarization has important consequences for the policymaking process. This report explores the issue of whether the increase in polarization can be attributed, at least in part, to growing geographic separation of liberal and conservative voters. It addresses two questions: first, whether the spatial distribution of the American electorate has become more geographically clustered over the past 40 years with respect to party voting and socioeconomic attributes; and second, whether this clustering process has contributed to rising polarization in the U.S. House of Representatives. We find support for both hypotheses and estimate that long-term geographical clustering of voters is responsible for roughly 30 percent of the increase in polarization in the House between the 93rd and 112th Congresses. An important ancillary finding is that socioeconomic variablesincluding those measuring race, education, income, and urbanicityare dwarfed by the within-district percentage of married adults as a predictor of local partisanship, as measured by both the party affiliation of the House representative and by the presidential vote share.

Url: http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/research_reports/RR800/RR896/RAND_RR896.pdf

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Authors: Sussell, Jesse; Thomson, James A

Publisher: Rand Corporation

Data Collections: IPUMS NHGIS

Topics: Other

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