congressional elections and midterms

Congressional Elections and Mid-terms

What You Need to know....

• timings of congressional elections
• constitutional requirements
• the nomination process
• trends in congressional elections
• voting behaviout in congressional elections
• mid term congressional elections

1. timings of congressional elections

• congressional elections are held every two years.
• senators serve a 6 year term
• representatives serve a 2 year term
• In each election: all of the representatives are elected and 1/3 of senators are elected
• Every second congressional election is held on the same day as the presidential election.
• Held on the thursday after the first monday in november
• 
• Caption: voters completing a ballot paper

2. constitutional requirements

• House of representatives Requirements:
• Must be at least 25 years old
• Has been a US citizen for a minimum of 7 years
• Resident of the state they represent
• Senate Requirements:
• Must be at least 30 years old
• Has been a US citizen for at least 9 years
• Resident of the state they represent
• Some larger states have the additional requirement that the representatives and senators must be a resident of the congressional dostrict they represent

3. the nomination process

• secure the nominations from one of the two major parties by running in a congressional primary, which is won outright unlike the president primaries.
• if you are an incumbent senator, you could be challenged in a primary contest but defeat is often rare.
• Between 1982 and 2012, only eight incumbent senators were defeated in congressional primaries. one of them was filling in a retired senator and another switched partiers

4. Trends in congressional elections

• Most trends have to be established in midterm elections because it is easier to distinguish the rationale between votes
• Coattails effect- the idea that by putting a strong candidate at the top of the ticket, others from that party are more likely to ride along on this voting.
• split ticket voting- electors vote for different parties in different houses at the same election. due to the high short term factor influence.
• srtong(ish) support for incumbents- high reelection rates in the past two decades, however slight dip in the 1990s.
• low number of competitive seats- those in safe seats due to the higher level of partizanship in the house elections.

5. voting behaviour in elections

• Local issues play a big part as the representatives will be more accountable to this. also the voters take into account the track record of delivery from the incumbent senator.
• e.g. loggi

6. Mid term elections

• For example: 2010 and 2014 were both midterm elections.
• Due to the lack of a presidential candidates name on the ballot, and not coattail effect, the candidates tend to do less well
• The votes also reflect how the voters feel about the performance of the president and his pary after 2 years in officice