Out of Sight, Out of Mind: Americans' Knowledge of Party Control of the House of Representatives, 1960-1984

Abstract

What affects Americans knowledge of the partisan makeup of the House of Representatives? Using National Election Studies from 1960 to 1984, we find that two sets of factors help explain what people know about party control of the lower chamber of the national legislature. The first reflects personal variables usually used to account for levels of political knowledge: education, gender, race, strength of partisanship, political interest, and media dependence. The second set includes contextual factors of U.S. politics, including divided party control of national elective institutions, divided control of the legislature itself, and whether elections change party control of the presidency. Contextual factors' importance as predictors of information show they merit closer study in future attempts to understand the dynamics of political information.