Much of the political punditry in the United States discusses the notion that facing a primary election results in legislators voting in a more partisan fashion in the legislature. A common refrain of this analysis is that facing the primary election constituency (Fenno 1978) or even the threat of facing the primary election constituency causes the senator to vote with the ideological extremes of the party in following sessions of congress. The literature on congressional elections has examined this area of research as it applies to the U.S. House, but few studies fully examine the impact of primary elections on roll call voting in the Senate. This study examines Senate primary elections to see how facing a primary, specifically a competitive primary, influences how a senator votes in the legislature in the first term following the election. This study specifically asks if senators who face a competitive primary challenge and win reelection vote with their party more often in subsequent congresses than senators who do not face a competitive primary challenge. Using OLS regressions and a number of control variables shown in the literature to impact roll call voting patterns, I examine the percentage of the vote that a senator received in her primary election compared to her party unity score in the Senate after the election. While my models demonstrate that facing a competitive primary correlates with a senator having a higher party unity score than senators who do not face a competitive primary, in all of my models the coefficient on this variable is not statistically significant. However, serving in the majority party and being elected in certain election years did have a statistically significant impact on a senator's partisan voting behavior. When testing an interaction effect between facing a competitive primary and serving in the majority party after the election, I also did not find a significant relationship between the interaction and a senator's change in party unity score. These findings add to our understanding of congressional elections by exploring an under-studied aspect of elections in the United States, and future research that adapts and refines the methodology of this study could further develop these results. / Master of Arts / There is a common perception that facing a primary election makes it more likely that a member of congress votes with her party more often. The idea is that the primary voters want their representatives to be more radical, and therefore push incumbents to the extremes, resulting in more polarization in the legislature. While studies on elections to the House have shown mixed results when examining this question, few studies examine if these patterns exist in elections to the Senate. This study examines Senate primary elections to see how facing a primary influences how a senator votes in the legislature. However, because of limited data, this study examines competitive primaries, based on how much of the vote the senator receives in her election, rather than ideological primaries, based on the senator being challenged from the extremes of the party. This study specifically asks how facing a competitive primary influences a senator's partisan voting patterns in subsequent congresses after their election. In order to study this, I examine the percentage of the vote that a senator received in her primary election compared to her partisan voting patterns in the Senate after the election. I did not find that senators who face a competitive primary respond by voting in a more partisan fashion in the congressional sessions following the election. However, serving in the majority party and being elected in certain election years did have a significant impact on a senator's partisan voting behavior. When testing if the impact of facing a competitive primary was conditioned by serving in the majority party, I also did not find that serving in the majority party conditions the impact of facing a competitive primary on a senator's partisan voting patterns. While these findings did not support the notion that facing a competitive primary influences a senator's partisan voting behavior, future research could alter this study to further examine this question. Such additional research is necessary in order to more fully understand Senate elections.

published_or_final_version / Sociology / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

This thesis is submitted to an English university and English expressions are used throughout. Foreign words and expressions are italicised except for those accepted in common English use, e.g. the Holy Koran. Principal place names are as appearing in The Times Atlas. Minor place, tribal and family names are italicised and included in the Glossary of Arabic Terms (below). Diacritical marks are omitted throughout. Dates are given for the Common Era (C.E.), and comparative tables of Al Hijra (A.H.) and Common Era years follows the Glossary. Throughout the thesis, the Kingdom means the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and The Prophet means the Prophet Mohammad salla-Hahu alayhi wa- salam ("God bless him and give him peace"). The Majlis Ash-Shura means the Consultative Council, and is referred to as such throughout this thesis.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Political Science, 1979. / MICROFICHE COPY AVAILABLE IN ARCHIVES AND DEWEY. / Bibliography: leaves 625-638. / by Jesse Lamar White, Jr. / Ph.D.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2006. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Dissertation (Ph.D.) - Simon Fraser University, 2006. / Theses (School of Communication) / Simon Fraser University. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 276-296). Also issued in digital format and available on the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.A.)--West Virginia University, 2009. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains v, 72 p. : col. maps. Vita. Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-52).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 236-249). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Of all the elections in New Zealand's political history, only two qualify for the adjective momentous. In 1890 and in 1935, Governments came to power whose vigour and liberalism were not only to alter the lives of their. contemporaries, but also to make changes that had continual repercussions in this country and echoes in other nations' handling of social problems.

Elections are one way in which interest groups seek to advance their policy goals. Policy studies and election studies have approached this issue differently, leaving unanswered questions about the relationship between interest group policy goals and electoral involvement. This report helps to fill the gaps by applying conventional wisdom to the unstudied question of interest group support for primary challengers. Its findings amend the conventional wisdom in a few key ways. While legislative access does have a negative effect on challenger support, a group-specific measure of access rather than a type-based inference shows the effect to extend beyond groups traditionally thought of as access-seekers. Further, interest in legislative access does not preclude targeted support for challengers by these groups. This suggests that groups may be more sensitive to political circumstances and willing to achieve policy goals through elections than previously thought. / text