Andrew is skeptical about “balancing” arguments in explaining why Chambliss won the Georgia Senate runoff election so easily, favoring a low-turnout explanation. Nolan looks at data and finds, as suspected, that parties not in the White House tend to win such special elections.
I’m not sure why Andrew finds it difficult to believe in balancing, at least on the margin. After all, we’re not too surprised when partisan tides or “coattails” happen, as we’ve just seen in 2006 and 2008. Even long serving incumbents get the boot if they’re the unfavored party. But the key is that people don’t really understand the aggregate consequences of the partisan tide. That is, the complete results of their independent decisionmaking at the ballot box aren’t available until after the election is over.
Once that happens, the uncertainty is over. People can clearly see who’s in power. And if the people are moderate
In other words, what I’m arguing is that, if we believe partisan tides happen, we should also believe in balancing. In fact, the low-turnout argument boosts the balancing story, as we’d expect the people who do turn out to be more politically knowledgeable and to better understand the consequences of their choice.
One more thing. In other single-member-district democracies, if I’m not mistaken, special elections (more typically called by-elections) are often seen as a strong signal to the governing party, especially in the negative direction. I think local and regional elections do the same thing for parliamentary democracies.
I believe in balancing; I just don’t think it’s necessary to explain the result. The Republican won the first round of the election, then in the 2nd round a conservative third party candidate dropped out and there was an expected drop in turnout (which I would also think would favor more conservative candidates, but maybe I’m wrong on that point). It seemed a leap to bring in balancing as an explanation without first going through these big factors.
Regarding by-elections: yes, but I think these are typically considered to be important as a lead-in to future elections, not when they are a month after the general election and before the newly elected candidates have even started their jobs.
What kind of misconceptions about political ideologies iterfere with our democracy? Like beleiving in only republican or democratic, and what would make one think that way?