This article is part of the The DC Brief, TIME’s politics newsletter. Sign up here to get stories like this sent to your inbox every weekday.
No one really disputes the concept of political coattails. The biggest name on a ballot has some dragging fabric that can pull down-ballot contenders across the finish line. The political science on this is fairly undisputed: the bold-faced brand with deep pockets behind the campaign can help the party as a whole, especially in states where voters can look at a ballot, spot a name they recognize and decide to support the entire slate that shares the party label. Such straight-ticket voting is not necessarily the most responsible way of picking candidates, but there’s no disputing that it is efficient, or that plenty of people do it.
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]
Well, it may turn out the favor goes both ways, and hyper-local candidates can have a positive spill-over on their colleagues up-ticket. After all, there’s a reasonable case to be made that the candidate for your local library board of directors has been to your door asking for support more often than, say, Joe Biden. Voters tend to trust their neighbors more than outsiders; it’s why the best national campaigns plug into existing grassroots networks rather than import paid mercenaries from headquarters to organize the must-win precincts.
In an analysis of seven must-win states from two Democratic groups that emerged from the ashes of 2016, it turns out that fielding down-ballot races has a statistically significant effect on boosting the headliners. In other words, having someone on the ballot for the parochial races like school boards and county auditors can actually help the contenders for Governor, Senator and even President. How much help they offer varies, from 0.4 percentage points to 2.3 percentage points, according to the BlueLabs analysis funded by Run for Something and For Our Future, two groups focused on local races.
A fraction of a percentage…
Source : time
