Partisan Divisions and Voting Decisions: U.S. Senators, Governors, and the Rise of a Divided Federal Government

This paper argues that existing research on divided government has ig nored the intergovernmental dimensions and implications of this phe nomenon. We address the intergovernmental case by exploring the historical rise and micro-level foundations of divided outcomes among same-state U.S. senator and governor pairs. The electoral results for senator-governor pairs lie at the intersection of state and national-level divided government, and are subject to the same historical and electoral forces that have shaped these other divided outcomes. We trace the histor ical rise of split outcomes in these contests, outline the theoretical and policy implications of these results, and offer an analysis of individual- level voting behavior intended to compare two competing explanations for divided outcomes: the “simple party loyalty model” and our own “com parative informational relevance model”.