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Partisanship and gender are powerful heuristic cues used by citizens to understand their elected officials’ ideology. When these cues send complementary signals – a Democratic woman or a Republican man – we expect they will aid citizens in evaluating their leaders’ political ideology. However, when partisanship and gender send conflicting signals, we expect citizens will be more likely to misperceive their leaders’ beliefs. We test this proposition using ideological evaluations of incumbent US senators collected in the 2010 and 2012 Cooperative Congressional Election Studies. The findings support our hypotheses, illustrating voters’ reliance on both partisan and gender cues. Our results suggest potential consequences for not only Republican women, but also Democratic men.

This dissertation examines the role of incumbent ideology on the entry decisions of congressional opponents, particularly high quality opponents. In order to better understand the interplay between incumbent ideology and opposition entry, this relationship is investigated in three distinct types of elections: House primary, House general and Senate general elections. The findings strongly point to an advantage for clear ideological positioning in primary elections and in the majority of general elections. These findings have strong relevance for students of polarization and congressional behavior. Instead of ideological extremity being a detrimental strategy for incumbents, it serves to deter the entry of strong opponents for the majority of representatives and senators.

This paper is an examination into the district factors and representative characteristics that lead to challenges of incumbent House members in party primaries. Given the extreme difficulty in defeating incumbent House members, it is expected that rational political actors will gauge the political climate carefully. Partisan dominated districts will be more likely to be the site of inter-party battles as the seats will be of greater value to potential challengers. Members that moderate their views will be more likely to be challenged due to the relative ideological extremity of the respective partisan base.