Primary Roots of Partisan Polarization: The Effects of Primaries on Intra-Campaign Positional Shifts in Congressional Elections

• In Event: The Politics of Congressional Primary Elections

Brief Overview

We test if congressional primaries cause candidates to take extreme positions using original data from 2020. We present evidence of artificially extreme position-taking by Democratic candidates, with losing candidates moderating after the primary.

Authors

• Mike Cowburn, Free University of Berlin

• Marius Sältzer, University of Mannheim