Coattail effect

Last updated July 20, 2023

The coattail effect or down-ballot effect is the tendency for a popular political party leader to attract votes for other candidates of the same party in an election. For example, in the United States, the party of a victorious presidential candidate will often win many seats in Congress as well; these Members of Congress are voted into office "on the coattails" of the president.

The "coattail effect" is not usually caused by popular candidates convincing swing voters to cast their ballots for their party, although this is not unheard of. Rather, the effect often stems from popular candidates driving voter turnout among their own party base, people who are likely to vote for down-ballot party candidates anyway.

The "coattail effect" has also been used to derogatorily describe the effect of Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs) in Singapore, where candidates for Parliament run on a party slate of 3 to 6 candidates. This allows weak candidates to get elected "riding on the coattails" of strong candidates on their slate.

Riding the coattails can be used as a generic metaphor that refers to one who achieves some level of success or notability primarily through association with someone else.^[2]

Presidential coattails

Presidential coattails is the ability of a presidential candidate to bring out supporters who then vote for his party's candidates for other offices. In effect, the other candidates are said to ride on the presidential candidate's coattails.

In the United States

Before the introduction of the secret ballot in the late 19th century, voters cast their ballots by taking a ticket provided by a party worker and putting it in the ballot box. The party-column ballot listed all candidates of the party in a single column and allowed the voter to mark off the party box at the top, which encouraged straight-party voting and the coattails effect. Straight-party voting was the norm, and winners in presidential elections often had long coattails. They almost always began their term with majorities in the House and Senate.

In modern times voting machines have replaced the party-column ballot with the office-column ballot: candidates are grouped by office rather than party. Often there is no way to cast a party-line vote, and each office must be voted on separately. The proportion of voters choosing House and presidential candidates of different parties increased from 13 percent in 1952 to more than 40 percent in the elections of 1972, 1980, and 1988. Consequently, Presidential coattails have been virtually eliminated in most elections, and a number of Presidents, including Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, have begun their terms with one or both chambers of Congress controlled by the opposition party.

Presidents may suffer from a "reverse coattail" effect in which their party's candidates for the House or Senate get more votes than the presidents themselves. In 1976, for example, Jimmy Carter won the White House with 40,831,881 votes, but Democratic candidates for the House that year received 41,749,411 votes. In 1992, almost all Democrats elected to Congress won more votes in their congressional districts than the party's presidential candidate, Bill Clinton; that may have had to do with the presence of a strong third-party presidential candidate, Ross Perot.

There is also the "negative coattail" effect in which a controversial presidential candidate may hurt candidates on the party's ticket running for lower offices. Goldwater's poor showing in the presidential election of 1964 led to the defeat of dozens of Republicans in the House of Representatives, leaving Johnson a large Democratic majority to pass his agenda.^[3]^[4] The negative coattail effect is also common in midterm elections - when a President associated with unpopular policies is not up for re-election, the electorate will often respond by punishing Congressional candidates from the President's own party.^[5] The Presidential elections of 1948 and 1952 are the most recent elections in which the same party both won the White House and took control of the House from their opponents.^[6] Since 1952, control of the House has changed hands six times, all of which were in midterm elections (1954, 1994, 2006, 2010, 2018 and 2022) and all of which were at the expense of the incumbent President's party.

Since the end of World War II, there have been a total of five American presidential elections that had coattail effects: Harry Truman in 1948, Dwight Eisenhower in 1952, Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Ronald Reagan in 1980, and Barack Obama in 2008.

In the French Fifth Republic

Since the office of President of France was re-established under the Third Republic, the presidential term ran for seven years. While the Presidents of the Third and Fourth republics were ceremonial figureheads, the Fifth Republic's constitution brought together a president with considerable executive powers and a prime minister, responsible before Parliament. The president's task was primarily to end deadlock and act decisively to avoid the stagnation prevalent under the French Fourth Republic; the prime minister, similarly, was to "direct the work of government", providing a strong leadership to the legislative branch and to help overcome partisan squabbles.

Since 1962, French presidents have been elected by popular vote, replacing the electoral college, which was only used once. This change was intended to give Fifth Republic presidents more power than they might have had under the original constitution. While still seen as the symbol and embodiment of the nation, the president also was given a popular mandate. Of course, the majority party of the National Assembly retained power as well, but since the popularly elected president appointed the prime minister (subject to the approval of the National Assembly), the former was seen as having the upper hand in any conflict between executive and legislature. Furthermore, the imbalance is further illustrated by the fact that the president can dissolve the Assembly at any time (but not more than once in a year), whereas the legislature has no powers of removal against the president.

However, even after direct presidential elections were introduced, the presidential term remained at seven years, while the National Assembly's term ran for five. The term imbalance could not guarantee that the President's preferred Prime Minister would enjoy a parliamentary majority, and a risk of cohabitation - a situation of divided government where ideological rivals hold the Presidency and the Premiership - loomed. For this reason, a constitutional amendment to shorten the presidential term to five years was adopted in 2000.

After the 2000 amendment, Presidential and national assembly elections were merely two months apart. This resulted in a noticeable coattail effect, where the President's party gains a majority in the National Assembly, even in 2002 (where the Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin, favored to win in a run-off between him and incumbent Jacques Chirac, was placed third in the first round, with the actual run-off resulting in a landslide for Chirac against far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen) and 2017 (where the presidential race's winner, Emmanuel Macron, ran under the banner of En Marche! - formed in 2016 - instead of an established party).

Group representation constituencies

Singapore introduced the GRC system in 1988, where candidates for Parliament run and are elected on a slate of 3 to 6 candidates in some constituencies, with a minimum of one minority candidate on each slate. The purported aim was to ensure minority representation in Parliament. However, it resulted in a "coattail effect" where unpopular and even unknown candidates are elected because they ran together with popular candidates (usually Ministers) on the same slate.^[7]

Despite the official reason cited, it was later stated by former Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong that it was used to recruit able people to join politics, particularly since the GRC system reduced the losses of the ruling party. In Singapore, the ruling People's Action Party maintains almost total dominance in Parliament with the GRC system. As of 2015, there were only 6 fully elected Opposition MPs in the 89-seat Parliament.

Related Research Articles

Singapore is a parliamentary republic whereby the president of Singapore is the head of state, the prime minister of Singapore is the head of government, and of a Dominant-party system.Executive power is exercised by the Cabinet from the parliament, and to a lesser extent, the president. Cabinet has the general direction and control of the government and is accountable to Parliament. There are three separate branches of government: the legislature, executive and judiciary abiding by the Westminster system. Singapore has been described as being a de facto one-party state.

Cohabitation is a system of divided government that occurs in semi-presidential systems, such as France, whenever the president is from a different political party than the majority of the members of parliament. It occurs because such a system forces the president to name a premier who will be acceptable to the majority party within parliament. Thus, cohabitation occurs because of the duality of the executive: an independently elected president and a prime minister who must be acceptable both to the president and to the legislature.

In the politics of the United States, elections are held for government officials at the federal, state, and local levels. At the federal level, the nation's head of state, the president, is elected indirectly by the people of each state, through an Electoral College. Today, these electors almost always vote with the popular vote of their state. All members of the federal legislature, the Congress, are directly elected by the people of each state. There are many elected offices at state level, each state having at least an elective governor and legislature. There are also elected offices at the local level, in counties, cities, towns, townships, boroughs, and villages; as well as for special districts and school districts which may transcend county and municipal boundaries.

There are currently two types of elections in Singapore: parliamentary and presidential elections. According to the Constitution of Singapore, general elections for Parliament must be conducted within three months of the dissolution of Parliament, which has a maximum term of five years from the first sitting of Parliament, and presidential elections are conducted every six years.

There are five types of elections in Slovakia: municipal elections, regional elections, parliamentary elections, presidential elections and elections to the European Parliament. All four types of elections are normally held after fixed periods, although early elections can occur in certain situations. Elections are conventionally scheduled for a Saturday - the polls normally open at 7:00 in the morning and close at 22:00 in the evening. Citizens aged 18 years or older are eligible to vote. Those serving prison sentences for particularly serious crimes, as well as those deprived of legal capacity, including persons with mental disabilities, are denied the right to vote. Voter registration is passive and decentralized with the voter register maintained by municipalities based on the permanent residence register. Voter lists are updated continuously based on municipal records and input provided by state institutions or other municipalities. Voters may verify their data in voter lists, and, if necessary, request correction until the day before election day. On election day, a voter can be added to a voter list upon presenting an identity card with proof of residency. Some 4.4 million voters are registered and valid to vote in the elections. Voters are only able to vote from abroad during the Parliamentary Elections in Slovakia.

Since its establishment in 1947, Pakistan has had an asymmetric federal government and is a federal parliamentary democratic republic. At the national level, the people of Pakistan elect a bicameral legislature, the Parliament of Pakistan. The parliament consists of a lower house called the National Assembly, which is elected directly, and an upper house called the Senate, whose members are chosen by elected provincial legislators. The head of government, the Prime Minister, is elected by the majority members of the National Assembly and the head of state, the President, is elected by the Electoral College, which consists of both houses of Parliament together with the four provincial assemblies. In addition to the national parliament and the provincial assemblies, Pakistan also has more than five thousand elected local governments.

Constituencies in Singapore are electoral divisions which may be represented by single or multiple seats in the Parliament of Singapore. Constituencies are classified as either Single Member Constituencies (SMCs) or Group Representation Constituencies (GRCs). SMCs are single-seat constituencies but GRCs have between four and five seats in Parliament.

General elections were held in Singapore on 3 November 2001. President S.R. Nathan dissolved parliament on 18 October 2001 on the advice of Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. The ruling People's Action Party (PAP) won 82 of the 84 elected seats in Parliament. Due to the large number (51) of uncontested seats, only 675,306 of the 2,036,923 eligible voters (33.2%) had an opportunity to vote. As of the recent election in 2020, this was the most recent, and fourth overall election PAP returned to power on nomination day with a majority of uncontested walkovers.

General elections in Singapore must be held within three months after five years have elapsed from the date of the first sitting of a particular Parliament of Singapore, as per the Constitution. However, Parliament can also be dissolved and a general election called at the behest of the Prime Minister before the five-year period elapses. The number of constituencies or electoral divisions is not permanently fixed by law, but is declared by the Prime Minister prior to each general election pursuant to the Parliamentary Elections Act, which governs the conduct of elections to Parliament, taking into account recommendations of the Electoral Boundaries Review Committee.

The general ticket, also known as party block voting (PBV) or ticket voting, is a type of block voting in which voters opt for a party, or a team's set list of candidates, and the highest-polling party/team becomes the winner. Unless specifically altered, this electoral system results in the victorious political party receiving 100% of the seats. Rarely used today, the general ticket is usually applied in more than one multi-member district, which theoretically allows regionally strong minority parties to win some seats, but the strongest party nationally still typically wins with a landslide.

The president of Italy, officially titled President of the Italian Republic, is the head of state of Italy. In that role, the president represents national unity, and guarantees that Italian politics comply with the Constitution. The president is the commander-in-chief of the Italian Armed Forces and chairs the High Council of the Judiciary. A president's term of office lasts for seven years. The incumbent president is former constitutional judge Sergio Mattarella, who was elected on 31 January 2015, and re-elected on 29 January 2022.

General elections were held in Singapore on 2 January 1997. President Ong Teng Cheong dissolved parliament on 16 December 1996 on the advice of Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. The election results were released in the late evening that day and the ruling People's Action Party won a total of 81 out of 83 seats as well as a tenth consecutive term in office under the then-Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. Other major political parties contesting in the election were the Workers' Party, Singapore Democratic Party, National Solidarity Party, Singapore People's Party and the Democratic Progressive Party.

In American politics, straight-ticket voting or straight-party voting refers to the practice of voting for every candidate that a political party has on a general election ballot. The term can also refer to a straight-ticket voting option, sometimes known as a master lever, that allows voters to check a box and vote for all of a party's candidates, instead of voting for each race individually.

A group representation constituency (GRC) is a type of electoral division or constituency in Singapore in which teams of candidates, instead of individual candidates, compete to be elected into Parliament as the Members of Parliament (MPs) for the constituency. The Government stated that the GRC scheme was primarily implemented to enshrine minority representation in Parliament: at least one of the MPs in a GRC must be a member of the Malay, Indian or another minority community of Singapore. In addition, it was economical for town councils, which manage public housing estates, to handle larger constituencies.

The election of the president and the vice president of the United States is an indirect election in which citizens of the United States who are registered to vote in one of the fifty U.S. states or in Washington, D.C., cast ballots not directly for those offices, but instead for members of the Electoral College. These electors then cast direct votes, known as electoral votes, for president, and for vice president. The candidate who receives an absolute majority of electoral votes is then elected to that office. If no candidate receives an absolute majority of the votes for president, the House of Representatives elects the president; likewise if no one receives an absolute majority of the votes for vice president, then the Senate elects the vice president.

General elections were held in Singapore on 31 August 1991. President Wee Kim Wee dissolved parliament on 14 August 1991 on the advice of Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong.

Singapore has a multi-party parliamentary system of representative democracy in which the President of Singapore is the head of state and the Prime Minister of Singapore is the head of government. Executive power is vested in the President and the Cabinet. Cabinet has the general direction and control of the government and is collectively responsible to the Parliament. There are three separate branches of government: the legislature, executive and judiciary.

By-elections in Singapore are elections held to fill seats in the Parliament of Singapore that fall vacant in between general elections, known as casual vacancies. In the past, the Government of Singapore took the position that the Prime Minister had discretion whether or not a by-election should be called to fill a casual vacancy in a Single Member Constituency, and could leave a parliamentary seat unfilled until the next general election. However, in the case of Vellama d/o Marie Muthu v. Attorney-General (2013), which arose from a vacancy in Hougang Single Member Constituency, the Court of Appeal held that the Constitution of Singapore obliges the Prime Minister to call a by-election unless a general election is going to be held in the near future. However, a by-election need only be called within a reasonable time, and the Prime Minister has the discretion to determine when it should be held.

General elections were held in Singapore on Friday, 11 September 2015 to elect 89 members of Parliament. The outgoing Parliament had been dissolved and the general election called by President Tony Tan on 25 August, on the advice of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. The elections were for the 13th Parliament since independence in 1965, using the first-past-the-post electoral system.

General elections were held in Singapore on Friday, 10 July 2020 to elect 93 members to the Parliament of Singapore across 31 constituencies. Parliament was dissolved and the general election called by President Halimah Yacob on 23 June, on the advice of Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. It elected members of parliament to the 14th Parliament of Singapore since Singapore's independence in 1965, using the first-past-the-post electoral system. Voting was mandatory for all Singaporeans who were aged 21 or above as of 1 March 2020.

References

↑ Magleby, David B.; O'Brien, David M.; Light, Paul C.; Cronin, Thomas E.; Peltason, J. W. (2007). Government by the People, National, State, Local. Prentice Hall. pp. 319–323. ISBN 9780132391498.
↑ "Ride Coattails idiom definition". The Free Dictionary. Retrieved 19 March 2015.
↑ Calvert, Randall L.; Ferejohn, John A. (June 1983). "Coattail Voting in Recent Presidential Elections". The American Political Science Review. 77 (2): 407–419. doi:10.2307/1958925. JSTOR 1958925. S2CID 147474806.
↑ Daley, David (24 April 2018). States Matter - Gerrymandering & Pipelines. Sister District.
↑ Campbell, James E.; Sumners, Joe A. (June 1990). "Presidential Coattails in Senate Elections". The American Political Science Review. 84 (2): 513–524. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.421.3388 . doi:10.2307/1963532. JSTOR 1963532. S2CID 14987482.
↑ Crespi, Irving (23 August 1988). Pre-Election Polling: Sources of Accuracy and Error. Russell Sage Foundation. p. 124, 178–180. ISBN 9781610441445.
↑ Tey, Tsun Hang (December 2008). "Singapore's Electoral System: Government by the People?". Legal Studies. 28 (4): 610–628. doi:10.1111/j.1748-121X.2008.00106.x. S2CID 143965283.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[1] Magleby, David B.; O'Brien, David M.; Light, Paul C.; Cronin, Thomas E.; Peltason, J. W. (2007). Government by the People, National, State, Local. Prentice Hall. pp. 319–323. ISBN 9780132391498.

[2] "Ride Coattails idiom definition". The Free Dictionary. Retrieved 19 March 2015.

[3] Calvert, Randall L.; Ferejohn, John A. (June 1983). "Coattail Voting in Recent Presidential Elections". The American Political Science Review. 77 (2): 407–419. doi:10.2307/1958925. JSTOR 1958925. S2CID 147474806.

[4] Daley, David (24 April 2018). States Matter - Gerrymandering & Pipelines. Sister District.

[5] Campbell, James E.; Sumners, Joe A. (June 1990). "Presidential Coattails in Senate Elections". The American Political Science Review. 84 (2): 513–524. CiteSeerX 10.1.1.421.3388 . doi:10.2307/1963532. JSTOR 1963532. S2CID 14987482.

[6] Crespi, Irving (23 August 1988). Pre-Election Polling: Sources of Accuracy and Error. Russell Sage Foundation. p. 124, 178–180. ISBN 9781610441445.

[7] Tey, Tsun Hang (December 2008). "Singapore's Electoral System: Government by the People?". Legal Studies. 28 (4): 610–628. doi:10.1111/j.1748-121X.2008.00106.x. S2CID 143965283.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]