Political Analysis Advance Access originally published online on April 29, 2009
Political Analysis 2009 17(3):215-235; doi:10.1093/pan/mpp002
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Giving Order to Districts: Estimating Voter Distributions with National Election Returns
University of Pennsylvania, 207 Stiteler Hall, Philadelphia, PA 19104 e-mail: gkernell{at}sas.upenn.edu
Correctly measuring district preferences is crucial for empirical research on legislative responsiveness and voting behavior. This article argues that the common practice of using presidential vote shares to measure congressional district ideology systematically produces incorrect estimates. I propose an alternative method that employs multiple election returns to estimate voters’ ideological distributions within districts. I develop two estimation procedures—a least squared error model and a Bayesian model—and test each with simulations and empirical applications. The models are shown to outperform vote shares, and they are validated with direct measures of voter ideology and out-of-sample election predictions. Beyond estimating district ideology, these models provide valuable information on constituency heterogeneity—an important, but often immeasurable, quantity for research on representatives’ strategic behavior.
Authors' note: I would like to thank Christopher Achen, Andrew Gelman, Shigeo Hirano, John Huber, Rod Kiewiet, Robert Van Howeling, Jonathan Wand, Gregory Wawro, the anonymous reviewers, the editors, and seminar participants at Columbia University and the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan for comments on previous versions of this article. I am especially grateful to Samuel Kernell and P.J. Lamberson for reading and commenting on multiple drafts. I also thank Gary Jacobson for providing district-level presidential returns and CCES data.