This paper identifies, tracks, and examines the
601 contested election cases in the House of Representatives from
the 1st through 107th (1789-2002) Congresses. One of its chief
goals is to assess the degree to which partisanship has been a
significant factor in influencing contested election outcomes.
The key finding is that a sizeable majority of successful
contests have favored the majority party; however, the overall
impact of the contested election process, in terms of adding majority
party seats, has been quite small on a per-Congress basis. The
one exception to this latter finding was during the late-19th
century, when a significant increase in successful contests, and
majority party additions, occurred.
This was due in large part to the Republican Party’s strategic
use of contested elections as a means of maintaining a presence
in the former-Confederate South.
Jeffery A. Jenkins, Political
Science and Institute for Policy Research, Northwestern University
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