Chapter 5 Candidate Characteristics in Primary Elections: An Analysis of U.S. House Candidates in 2024

Organizations promoting primary reforms contend that non-partisan primaries are an effective mechanism to increase candidate diversity and reduce polarization in Congress.We examine this question empirically in terms of the backgrounds and identities of candidates.Using an original dataset of 2,354 Democratic and Republican primary candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives in 2024, we assess variation in candidate characteristics (gender, race, and "quality") in terms of primary type, partisanship, geographic region, and outcome.Having done so, we empirically test whether non-partisan primaries are associated with substantively different primary and general election candidates in terms of these characteristics.We show that non-partisan primaries are not associated with more diverse or experienced candidates.We complement these descriptive findings with in-depth qualitative analyses of several important House primaries.We conclude by discussing how primaries relate to questions of candidate identity and party control of the nomination process, positing that one reason for the minimal effects of reform is that parties quickly adapt to them.Partisan primaries are frequently said to be a cause of problems in U.S. democracy, most prominently in terms of contributing to a lack of diversity and as a driver of partisan polarization in the U.S. Congress (Fiorina, Abrams, and Pope 2005).Non-partisan primaries, where all candidates run on a single primary ballot regardless of party affiliation, are said to improve descriptive representation and produce less polarized outcomes (Alvarez and Sinclair 2015; but see Ahler, Citrin, and Lenz 2016).In this chapter, we empirically investigate the relationship between primary elections and candidate backgrounds in terms of gender, race, and previous elected experience ("quality").Our goal is to better understand the characteristics of challengers, incumbents, and candidates in open-seat primaries; differences between Democrats and Republicans; regional variation; and candidate outcomes, i. e., how successful different types of candidates were.We then pay specific attention to the question of difference between candidates in non-partisan and partisan primaries.