How Primary Elections Impact Behavior in the U.S. House of Representatives

Key Takeaways

Primary elections impact the behavior of members of Congress in certain ways.

• Members of Congress heavily weigh their chances in future primary elections when deciding how to vote on a measure.
• Members are less concerned with primary election considerations when they are deciding whether to sponsor or cosponsor legislation; they instead tend to prioritize the needs and interests of their district and constituents.
• Primary elections heavily influence the public communications behavior of members of Congress, especially efforts to ward off or defend against a primary challenger.

Primary elections are only one of many factors influencing the behavior of members of Congress.

• Party leadership shapes both the legislative agenda and party messaging to improve the party’s prospects of winning or maintaining control of their chamber and to protect incumbents from primary challenges.
• The nationalization of politics—the primacy of national issues, media narratives, and campaigns and party priorities—affects members’ legislative and communications behavior.
• Incumbents see state and local parties as a source for potential primary challengers, further reinforcing that members must contend with competing dynamics at different levels of politics.

Reforming primary elections might alter some of the incentives driving members’ behavior, but it is not clear how much change primary reforms alone can achieve.

• Members of Congress have mixed views on the ability of primary election reforms to create better incentives for congressional behavior.
• Confounding factors that influence member behavior make it difficult to predict how much primary reforms could alter their behavior.