Small Power

This book examines the role local party organizations play in the electoral process. It draws on dozens of in-person interviews with local party chairpersons, as well as findings from a national survey of these local elites. Part I of the book explores who leads local party organizations and what these organizations do. The findings demonstrate that these organizations play a critical role in converting citizens into politicians and supporting them as they navigate the campaign process. These efforts appear to pay dividends as candidates from a party tend to perform better in areas where the local party organization is active. Part II considers what local party chairpersons look for in a candidate, drawing on findings from an experiment included in the national survey of party chairs. The experiment asked chairs which of a pair of candidates they thought would be most likely to prevail in a primary in their area and varied an array of candidate characteristics, including their policy positions, family structures, and their purported ethnoracial identity and gender. The results offer novel insights into the attributes that elites who play a critical role in candidate recruitment see as enhancing (or degrading) an individual's electoral prospects. Throughout, the experimental evidence is bolstered by findings from the in-depth interviews with chairs--