The Personal Vote Revisited: Factoring in the Electoral Considerations.

Cain, Ferejohn, and Fiorina's (1990) notion of a "personal vote," the portion of legislators' support developed through their efforts to aid constituents as part of their official duties, plays a large role in theories of legislative behavior and congressional elections. In this essay, we revisit their multi-variate model to test whether electoral variables mitigate the effect of the personal vote; that is, we examine whether the personal vote is stronger in elections where the opposition is weaker, and vice versa. We test this hypothesis on an array of NES studies, including the authoritative 1978 study. If confirmed, this pattern would suggest that the personal vote itself is an artifact of and not a cause of electoral competition, thereby altering our understanding of the source of incumbency advantage. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]