Economic Voting for Governor and U. S. Senator: The Electoral Consequences of Federalism

Abstract

Economic voting is examined in gubernatorial and senatorial elections. The findings of this study show that the assignment of functional responsibilities in a federal system determines the subject of voters' retrospective and prospective candidate and party evaluations and thus differentiates the content of vote decisions at each level of government. Voters are thought to assign the federal government a preponderant responsibility for managing the national and regional economies, and thus hold congressional and presidential incumbents more accountable than their subnational counterparts for subnational macro- and microeconomic conditions.