A new study published in Political Research Quarterly has shed light on the growing trend of nationalization in local elections, particularly focusing on elections for local prosecutors. Traditionally, local elections in the United States have been heavily influenced by local factors like the candidate’s experience or ties to the community. However, the new study shows that local prosecutor elections are increasingly affected by voter preferences at the national level. This change highlights how national political dynamics are now influencing even the most localized electoral contests.
Prosecutors play a significant role in the criminal justice system, deciding on cases ranging from local crimes to high-profile national issues. These elections used to be low-salience, non-competitive events but have garnered more attention in recent years, particularly with the rise of progressive prosecutors advocating for criminal justice reform.
This new wave of prosecutors, supported by high-profile donors like George Soros, has faced criticism from conservative politicians who tie these races to larger national political debates. Given the polarized nature of current U.S. politics, the researchers wanted to investigate how these dynamics influence the chances of incumbent prosecutors winning re-election and whether they face challenges in their races.
“My co-authors and I have been interested in the subject of nationalized politics and elections for several years and we were increasingly seeing evidence that nationalization was influencing down-ballot elections in recent years,” said Jamie L. Carson, the UGA Athletic Association Professor of Public & International Affairs at the University of Georgia and author of Nationalized Politics.
“Based upon some past work that my co-authors have conducted on prosecutorial elections, we decided to investigate whether these races were also being affected by nationalized politics (i.e., who was at the top of the ticket). That is exactly what we found in this article illustrating that all politics is now nationalized. There was also surprisingly little work in political science on prosecutorial elections so we were attempting to fill a significant void in the literature as well.”
For their study, the researchers gathered data from prosecutor elections between 2012 and 2020 in 200 of the largest districts in the United States, covering over 50% of the U.S. population. They analyzed factors influencing whether incumbents won their elections and whether they faced challengers. The team specifically looked at how national-level dynamics, such as the political alignment of local prosecutors with the winning presidential candidate, impacted election outcomes. Other factors examined included population size of the electoral district, the presence of partisan versus nonpartisan elections, crime rates, the number of challengers, and the incumbent’s years in office.
The researchers found strong evidence that national-level political dynamics have a substantial influence on local prosecutor elections. Incumbents who were from the same political party as the presidential candidate who had won their district were significantly more likely to win re-election and face fewer challengers.
For example, an incumbent prosecutor aligned with the district’s winning presidential candidate had a nearly 20% greater chance of winning their election, and they were 25% more likely to run unopposed. This demonstrates that the success of a prosecutor’s party at the national level plays an increasingly important role in these local elections, overshadowing traditional factors such as incumbency and local reputation.
“For years, the adage of ‘all politics is local’ (as initially espoused by former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill) seemed to accurately sum up what was happening in American politics,” Carson told PsyPost. “That has clearly changed during the past few decades such that who is at the top of the ticket is now driving politics and political choices down the ballot. This is especially important in the current election year since who wins the presidential race will have far reaching implications for affiliated candidates lower down on the ticket.”
The study also found that the size of the district mattered. Prosecutors running in larger, more populous districts were more likely to face challengers and lose re-election compared to those in smaller districts. Larger districts, often urban, tend to have more competitive elections, which can erode the advantages incumbents usually enjoy. Additionally, prosecutors in nonpartisan elections were more likely to win, as voters in these districts had fewer partisan cues to influence their decision-making, allowing the incumbent’s reputation to play a bigger role.
Interestingly, the study found that while incumbents facing primary challengers were more likely to encounter a general election challenge, having a primary challenger did not significantly impact their chances of winning the general election. Multiple challengers in the general election also had no statistically significant effect on whether an incumbent won or lost.
Crime rates, as expected, were relevant to the outcomes of prosecutor elections, but not as much as one might assume. Incumbents in states with higher violent crime rates were more likely to win re-election and face fewer challengers, suggesting that voters prefer continuity in leadership during times of heightened crime. However, the effect of crime rates was relatively small compared to the influence of national political alignment. This finding highlights the growing impact of national politics in these races, even when voters are making decisions about offices focused on local issues like crime.
“The nationalization of local elections does indeed have a downside,” Carson said. “Local officials could end up running on issues they don’t actually have the power to directly affect rather than those more pertinent to the local level.”
Another notable finding was that female incumbents faced more challenges in prosecutor elections compared to their male counterparts. Female prosecutors were more likely to be opposed in elections, and they had a slightly lower probability of winning compared to male incumbents. The study noted that this gender disparity is consistent with findings in other political offices, where women candidates often face greater scrutiny and competition.
“Based upon our analysis, we found that incumbent prosecutors gain a meaningful advantage if they are the same party as the U.S. president, one that’s not easy for challengers to overcome,” Carson told PsyPost. “Other influences were statistically significant, although smaller when compared to the presidential party boost: Higher crime rates tend to give an advantage to an incumbent, for example, and female incumbents are less likely to win, likely due to the influence of gender stereotypes.”
Despite its comprehensive nature, the study has some limitations. One limitation is its focus on high-population districts, which may not fully represent the dynamics in smaller, more rural districts where prosecutor elections are often less competitive and less nationalized. Another limitation is that the study only analyzed data up to 2020, so it may not capture more recent developments in national politics and local prosecutor elections. Future research could expand to include smaller districts and explore the role of media coverage and campaign finance, particularly the influence of outside money in local races.
“We are currently working on subsequent papers that take a deeper look at the subject of prosecutorial elections,” Carson said. “We have written companion papers that investigate the effect of nationalization on the decisions by female prosecutor candidates to run and factors that affect their electoral success. We are also examining the effects of money in prosecutorial elections and whether increasing patterns of nationalization are driving the dramatic increases in spending in these races during recent election cycles.”
“We hope to highlight the relevancy and importance of prosecutor elections, especially given the enormous discretion they have in the criminal justice system. They are powerful officials, and these elections are becoming more salient and competitive given the increasingly nationalized state of American politics.”
The study, “The Increasing Nationalization of Local Elections: The Case of Prosecutors,” was authored by Jamie L. Carson, Damon Cann, Jeffrey L. Yates, and Ronald F. Wright.
