The effects of party advantage on the partisan support of new US house members

We argue that the partisan voting patterns of new members of:the House of R epresentatives are affected by national political conditions. New members o f a party advantaged by national forces should exhibit distinctively partis an voting patterns, while new members of the disadvantaged party should not . We use a comparative statics research design to examine eight congresses with large numbers:of new members that were also characterized by different national forces. Multivariate OLS models of party support are used to isol ate the effects of first-term status while controlling for other factors th at might influence a member's willingness to support his or her party. We f ind that national forces have the expected general effect on the partisan s upport of new members of the advantaged party, and that the size of that ef fect varies with the particular character of the national forces.