Three's a Crowd: The Dynamic of Third Parties, Ross Perot, and Republican Resurgence

8. Perot & the Republican Resurgence, 1994-2000

VIII Perot & the Republican Resurgence) 1994-2000 dip w" HAVE SHOWN THAT THE Republican Party made an aggressive bid for Perot backers' support in the 1994 election, but can we show that Republicans were successful in attracting Perot voters to their cause? In this chapter, we demonstrate that the Perot vote was responsible for producing historic Republican victories in the 1994 House elections and in the 2000 presidential election. Ross Perot's success as an independent candidate in 1992 opened the door to a Republican resurgence at the close of the twentieth century. There is no doubt that Republicans enjoyed historic success in the 1994 elections by winning majority control of both houses of Congress, breaking an apparent Democratic stranglehold on the U.S. House of Representatives. Previously, the Democrats held consistent majorities in the House, even when they lost the presidency by landslide margins, as in T972 and 1984. Between 1952, when the Republicans won the presidency for the first time in twenty years, and 1992, when Bill Clinton captured the presidency with a popular-vote plurality of 43 percent, the Republicans won seven presidential elections to only f<)Ur by the Democrats . Nonetheless, the Democrats amassed m:~jority after l11:~ority in U.S. House ekctiollS after 1952. Figure 8. T puts the magnitude of the 1994 Republican victory in the context of Republican performance in House elections since 1948. Between 1948 and 1992, the Republican Party managed to win an average of only 40.6 percent of the seats in the House of Representatives. They 17! 55.00 [ 50.00 45.00 172 THRFE'S A CROWD Republicans control majOritY~USe 40.00 ~r-----r----jl---:;;;""''r--+-------1r-------/'--+--+----'--'~-----'~-----4 35.00 30.00 Mean Republican seats, 1948-1992 1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 Year Fig. 8. I. Percentage Republicall seats ill U.S. Home of Representatives, 1948-2000 captured a majority of the House only once, in the 1952 elections, when their presidential nominee, World War II hero D\Night D. Eisenhower, won the presidency. After the 1992 elections, the Republicans held only 40.5 percent of the seats in the House, a hair below their average for the post-World War IT period. In the 1994 midterm elections, the Republicans turned the tables, winning 52.4 percent of the popular vote and gaining a 53 percent majority of seats. It is no coincidence that Republic3!1S won their first cOllgre~sional majority in the election immediately following Ross Perot's independent candidacy in 1992.The Republicans won in T994 because they successfully bid for the 1992 Perot constituency in the Contract with America and with strong candidates for the House, especially in districts where Perot had done well in 1992. Not only did the Republicans achieve victory in 1994, but they also enjoyed continued success in House elections and victory in the 2000 presidential election. However, the link between Perot and the Republican resurgence, while a direct consequence of our understanding of the dynamic of third parties, has Perot & the Republican Resurgence 173 largely gone unnoticed in the scholarly literature on the 1994 election and its aftermath. SCHOLARLY EXPLANATIONS OF THE 1994 REPUBLICAN VICTORY The conventional scholarly understanding of U.S. House elections is that their outcomes can best be explained by a combination of national tides, the partisan makeup of the district, incumbency, and other factors particular to the race in the district. The most important factor is whether the incumbent is running for reelection. Incumbent reelection rates are high, averaging approximately 94 percent since 1966. Incumbents are successful because they usually share the partisanship of the majority ofvoters in their district and because they make every effort to maintain their personal popularity in their district (Cain, Ferejohn, and Fiorina 1987;Jacobson 2004; Mann and Wolfinger 1980). David Mayhew (1974) offered the classic description of how incumbents maintain their popularity: by advertising their name, by claiming credit for producing policies and benefits that voters in the district want, and by taking positions on issues (in their roll-call voting and in their public pronouncements) in accord with district opinion. In addition, incumbents have resources-such as their staff and the frank (subsidized mailing privileges)-that challengers lack. Thus, many observers have argued that U.S. House elections are not typically fought on a level playing field, since challengers are outspent and overmatched by incumbents. In many districts, the incumbent is recognized as unbeatable , and no one emerges to mount a challenge. In most other districts , the challenger is neither experienced nor well funded and has little or no chance ofunseating the incumbent. One reason challengers are so often underfunded and overwhelmed is because the strongest prospective challengers already hold political office and are reluctant to put their current position at risk, knowing that incumbents are difficult to unseat.They often remain on the sidelines until the incumbent retires and the seat becomes open (Bond, Covington, and Fleisher 1985; Cox and Katz 2002; Gaddie and Bullock 2000). When the seat is open and no incumbent is running for reelection, the campaign is typically far 174 THREE'S A CROWD more balanced and competitive, with strong, well-funded candidates running on both sides. In addition to local factors, congressional elections scholars recognize that national tides in any given election may favor one party or the other. The midterm election of 1974 is an example of an election-year tide against the president's party, owing in large measure to the Watergate scandal and the resignation of Richard Nixon from the presidency. Election tides against a party may also result it-om the poor ped