Replication Data for: Short-Term Pain for Long-Term Gain: The Logic of Legislative Party Switching in the Contemporary American South

One of the most important career decisions for a legislator is the decision to switch parties, and it raises a theoretical puzzle: it can be costly, yet sometimes legislators do change partisan affiliation. We elucidate this puzzle with the first-ever systematic comparison of the entire careers of state legislative switchers and non-switchers in the American South, where the high prevalence of party switching coincided with rapid realignment toward the Republican Party. Our analysis is the first to evaluate all post-switch career decisions (retiring, running for reelection, running for higher office) simultaneously, and it is the broadest in its scope with two full decades of career data. We demonstrate that converts to the Grand Old Party (GOP) pay a reelection cost. However, they are less likely to retire than Democratic non-switchers and more likely to seek higher office. This latter finding is especially strong during the earlier part of our study – when the Republican bench in the South was not as deep and competition for the party label was not as intense. Our findings suggest that political ambition motivates legislators to trade short-term electoral costs for a more promising long-term electoral career with the ascendant party.

对于议员而言，改换党派是其职业生涯中至关重要的决策之一，这一行为同时引出了一项理论谜题：换党行为往往需付出高昂成本，但仍有部分议员会选择变更自身的党派归属。我们借助美国南部州议员换党派者与未换党派者完整职业轨迹的首次系统性对比分析，解开了这一谜题——该地区议员换党现象频发，且恰逢美国政坛快速向共和党（Grand Old Party，GOP）阵营重新整合的历史阶段。本次分析首次同时评估了议员换党后的全部职业决策，包括退休、竞选连任、竞选更高职级公职，且其覆盖范围最为广泛，涵盖了长达二十年的完整职业数据。研究结果显示，转投共和党（Grand Old Party，GOP）的议员需承担连任成本，但相较于未换党派的民主党议员，他们的退休概率更低，且更倾向于竞选更高职级的公职。这一结论在本研究的早期阶段尤为显著——彼时美国南部的共和党后备力量尚显薄弱，党派提名竞争也并不激烈。我们的研究结果表明，政治野心驱使议员们以短期选举成本为代价，换取在崛起政党中更具前景的长期选举生涯。