Explaining Congressional Elections: Differences in Perceptions of Opposing Candidates.

This paper presents data on the perceptions of candidates who opposed one another in electoral contests for the United States House of Representatives. The candidates studied here are 30 freshmen elected in the fall of 1970 and their opponents in the 1972 general election. Candidates were asked to evaluate their performance compared with their pre-election expectations and to evaluate the impact of presidential coat-tails, redistricting, party identification, issues, and personality on the outcome of the election. Incumbents generally performed better than expected while challengers did worse. Challengers were more likely to believe that presidential coattails and party identification were important factors. Incumbents were more likely to stress personalities and issues. Incumbents more often believed they were helped by presidential coat-tails and redistricting than did challengers. When responses of candidates who opposed one another were analyzed, we see that their perceptions are more often in agreement than might be expected by chance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]