Special Elections to the U. S. House: Some Descriptive Generalizations.

This paper summarizes an attempt to describe special elections to the U.S. House of Representatives in terms of their most important characteristics-turnout, victory margins, and especially the flow of party control. Such elections are the U.S. counterpart of by elections in Great Britain. The analysis focuses on the 97 special House elections that were held between 1954 and 1978; data on general elections, both on-year and off-year, are also employed for comparative purposes. Special elections are found to resemble off-year elections in several respects, though there are also some crucial differences between these two less visible types of House elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]