Collective Accountability in State Legislative Elections Obama: the State Legislator People Vote Against

Abstract: Party labels allow voters to hold elected officials collectively accountable. This form of accountability is seen at the national level, but it is unclear if voters similarly hold state legislative parties accountable. In studies of parties in state legislative elections, previous research ignores the state house majority party and does not account for voters ’ approval or knowledge of the legislature. To overcome these limitations, I use two data sets to investigate collective accountability. With recent surveys, I show respondents ’ approval of the state legislature correlates with a party’s state house votes, suggesting elections serve to hold state legislative parties accountable. Examining past elections, I find the state house majority party receives little reward for good economies. Evaluations of the president, however, play a stronger role in both analyses. Presidential approval has twice the impact of state legislative approval on voting decisions, even amongst those who knew which party controlled their legislature. The role misinformation and federal evaluations play in legislative elections raises concerns for how voters hold state legislative parties accountable.