Award Date
12-1-2017
Degree Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Political Science
First Committee Member
Rebecca Gill
Second Committee Member
Michele Kuenzi
Third Committee Member
David Damore
Fourth Committee Member
Paul Traudt
Number of Pages
253
Abstract
While rarely studied, primary elections have a tremendous affect on the general election. This effect can be magnified by institutional differences in the way primary and general elections operate in the states. In the case of judicial elections, the effects of the primary are further confounded by the differences in judicial selection systems across the states. My goal is to understand the role of the primary election as a stepping stone on the way to office. This dissertation endeavors to answer three questions: 1. What are the relevant differences between judicial primary election systems? 2. What influences challengers to emerge in judicial primary elections? 3. How do women move through judicial primary elections to the general election? Using a new, original dataset of judicial primary elections from 1990-2016, I isolated the relevant differences and identified five different types of primary elections held in judicial contests. Challengers are more likely to appear in races where the incumbent had faced challengers in prior primary elections. In the aggregate, women do not face systematic disadvantages in primary elections and win primary contests at high rates. These findings add to the scholarly understanding of judicial elections and prompt further studies on the role of the primary in state judicial and legislative elections.
Keywords
challenger emergence; election; gender; judicial election; primary election; state supreme court
Disciplines
Law | Political Science
File Format
Degree Grantor
University of Nevada, Las Vegas
Language
English
Repository Citation
Eugenis, Katherine, "Effects of Judicial Primary Election Systems on Challenger Emergence and Candidate Success" (2017). UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones. 3128.
http://dx.doi.org/10.34917/11889689
Rights
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