NOTES
1. By "moderate" candidates, I simply mean those with centrist policy positions. Thus, moderate Democrats are relatively conservative, and moderate Republicans are relatively liberal. By "extreme," I mean far to either the liberal or conservative end of the ideological spectrum. [BACK]
2. The other forms of primary elections used in the United States are the open and semiclosed. Twenty-three states use open primaries. In open primaries, participation is open to all registered voters, but each party has a separate ballot, and voters are restricted to participating in a single party's nominations in a given election. Eight states use semiclosed primaries, which are an intermediate form that allows independents and/or new voters to participate but not members of other parties. Louisiana uses a nonpartisan "primary," in which any candidate who receives a majority of the total vote automatically wins the office. If no candidate receives a majority, the top two vote receivers from any parties meet in a runoff (see Bott 1991). [BACK]
3. It is also possible that existing candidates will change their policy positions. In Downsian fashion, candidates may move away from their hard-core partisan constituencies and converge towards the center to compete for the favor of the sincere crossovers and hedgers (Downs 1957). This "move" towards the center may occur either as existing candidates change their positions to adapt to the new electoral environment, or as new candidates enter with more moderate positions. [BACK]
4. I also assume that all voters turn out, and that all actors know all aspects of the example. [BACK]
5. This example is deliberately simplistic to illustrate the basic dynamics of voter choice under open or blanket primaries. I consider the consequences of relaxing some of the most restrictive assumptions, such as the voter distribution and candidate positions, below. [BACK]
6. See Gerber and Morton 2001 for a more detailed examination of this basic model. [BACK]
7. ADA scores are voting indices constructed by the liberal interest group Americans for Democratic Action. They indicate the proportion of times the legislator cast a liberal vote on selected bills. Gerber and Morton use ADA scores as indicators of legislators' ideology. [BACK]
8. In fact, three other Republican candidates were listed on the ballot. However, none was ever considered a real threat to Lungren and, in the end, none received more than 4 percent of the vote. [BACK]
9. Three other Democrats were listed on the ballot. All received less than 1 percent of the party vote. [BACK]
10. Harman's 1996 ADA score was only 60 (with 100 being the most liberal), placing her among the most conservative Democrats in the House (Block and Buck 1997, 390). [BACK]
11. One other Democratic candidate won 7.85 percent of the party vote. Four other Republican candidates were also listed on the ballot. One received 10.36 percent of the party vote, and the others received less than 2 percent each (California Secretary of State 1998c). [BACK]
12. Boxer's 1996 ADA score was a perfect 100 (Block and Buck 1997, 341). [BACK]
13. It is possible, of course, that candidates' retirement decisions are tied in part to strategic considerations related to the blanket primary. See Kiewiet and Zeng 1993 on strategic retirements. [BACK]
14. My assessment of candidate policy positions is based on information from several sources, including candidate statements and election materials, newspaper coverage, and political consultant Allan Hoffenblum's California Target Book, a careful race-by-race assessment of state legislative races used extensively by campaign professionals. The Target Book is produced and updated throughout the election cycle. I thank Mr. Hoffenblum for his generosity in providing me access to the Target Book. [BACK]
15. As with the U.S. Congressional races, I relied primarily on candidate statements, election materials, newspaper reports, and Hoffenblum's California Target Book to assess winning candidates' positions and district ideology. [BACK]
16. In most cases, this information was available for the second-place candidate. In a few, it was also available for the third-place candidate. [BACK]
17. Candidates who predated term limits, instituted in 1992, may have an incumbency advantage not enjoyed by post-term-limits candidates. Therefore, comparisons between 1998 and years prior to 1996 are severely suspect. [BACK]
18. An alternative explanation posits the opposite causal story; that is, strong moderate candidates attract ideologically extreme challengers. [BACK]
19. Reliable data on challenger policy positions were available for only forty-six races (thirty in 1996, sixteen in 1998). [BACK]