[EL] California top-two effect on number of Republicans running for US House

[Kogan, Vladimir]

2010 is a bad baseline, since everyone expected it to be a strong Republican year. If we believe that challengers are strategic about their entry (and incumbents are strategic about their retirements), we would expect 2010 to be a year with a lot of Republican candidates who would not be running in a different year.

2008 was very different: California had six congressional districts with no Republicans running (18th, 28th, 30th, 31st, 32nd, 38th). It also had two districts with no Democrats running, if you exclude the write-in Democrat in the 19th. See http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/sov/2008_general/23_34_us_reps.pdf

If 2012 is more like 2008, the playing field this year may not look all that different.

I think strategic entry is important in another respect: If only "low-quality"/placeholder/gadflies-with-no-chance-of-winning candidates run against strong incumbents, and "high-quality" challengers enter only when there is a good year for their party, the we should not be surprised that the top-two party would prevent some of these low-quality candidates from making it to the runoff.

Is there empirical evidence showing that: "The absence of a congressional candidate is bad for the morale of the local party in that area"? In particular, is no candidate really worse for party morale than a candidate who gets his/her clock cleaned at the polls?
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