Candidate Extremism and Voter Roll-Off in US House Elections

Growing evidence suggests that extreme candidates perform worse, in part because their party’s share of turnout declines. But does candidate ideology affect the decision of whether to abstain in a House race among voters who already turned out in the presidential election? I examine the relationship between candidates’ ideology and voter abstention in the House contest, reporting two main results. First, fewer voters abstain in elections featuring more ideologically polarized House candidates. A consideration of party effects reveals more nuance, however: In most cases, roll-off is lower when extreme candidates run, but the effect of an extreme Republican is substantially larger than that of an extreme Democrat. Further analysis suggests that decreased roll-off is probably due to extreme candidates mobilizing out-partisans. My results suggest that allowing for the possibility of voter abstention is an important theoretical addition to understanding the behavioral effects of extremist candidates.