Zheng Zhang*, Yujie Wang, Yayang Liu
Beijing Foreign Studies University, Beijing, China.
*Corresponding author: Zheng Zhang
Abstract
Since Newt Gingrich's significant reforms in 1994, the Republican Party has undergone increasing unity and mobilization of its conservative constituents, challenging the Democrats' long-standing dominance in the House of Representatives. Both parties adopted strategies to secure "safe seats" through gerrymandering, thereby eliminating the need for candidates to appeal to centrist voters. Candidates who closely align with their party's ideology gain strong support from party voters and have an advantage in their constituencies, which leads to easy election victories. The presence of challengers with more extreme ideologies than the incumbent has contributed to the ongoing polarization. However, the reasons behind the Republican Party having a greater number of challengers with more ex-treme ideologies than the Democratic Party remain unclear. This study aims to analyze the ideological scores of winning challengers (specifically House representatives) from both parties in the United States between 2000 and 2020 using the DW-Nominate model. By mapping and constructing a trend model of their ideologies, we will compare and identify the correlation between asymmetric polarization and challenger participation. The findings of this study will provide valuable insights for future research on congressional campaigns in the United States.
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How to cite this paper
A Study of the Asymmetric Polarization of Congressional Partisan Politics Based on the Ideological Scores of Challengers and Incumbents in Both Parties in the United States
How to cite this paper: Zheng Zhang, Yujie Wang, Yayang Liu. (2023) A Study of the Asymmetric Polarization of Congressional Partisan Politics Based on the Ideological Scores of Challengers and Incumbents in Both Parties in the United States. Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Science, 7(10), 2019-2024.
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/jhass.2023.10.019