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Drawing the Line on District Competition: ARejoinder

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 February 2006

Alan Abramowitz ,
Brad Alexander  and
Matthew Gunning
Alan Abramowitz
Affiliation:
Emory University
Brad Alexander
Affiliation:
Emory University
Matthew Gunning
Affiliation:
Emory University
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Extract

In “Drawing the Line on District Competition,” Michael McDonald(2006) challenges our conclusion that redistricting is notresponsible for declining competition in House elections. McDonaldclaims that this conclusion is incorrect largely because our measureof district partisanship in 1992 is flawed. According to McDonald,using the normalized 1992 major party presidential vote as a measureof House district partisanship in 1992 seriously overstates thecompetitiveness of House districts in that year because of theimpact of the vote for Ross Perot. McDonald recommends instead usingthe 1988 presidential vote to measure district partisanship in 1992,or using a procedure developed by Gelman and King (1994a) toestimate the partisan bias of House districts. With either of thesemethods, McDonald claims that a significant proportion of thedecline in competitive districts between 1990 and 2002 was caused byredistricting. In addition, contrary to our finding that nonpartisanredistricting commissions have failed to produce increasedcompetition in House elections, McDonald claims that nonpartisanredistricting in Arizona provides a positive example of what can beaccomplished by nonpartisan redistricting commissions elsewhere.

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Type
FEATURES
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PS: Political Science & Politics , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , January 2006 , pp. 95 - 97
Copyright
© 2006 The American Political Science Association

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