361 Strategic-Politicians Theory LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, XXXII, 3, August 2007 361 SCOTT J. BASINGER Stony Brook University MICHAEL J. ENSLEY Indiana University Candidates, Campaigns, or Partisan Conditions? Reevaluating Strategic-Politicians Theory According to strategic-politicians theory, political elites help ensure electoral responsiveness even when the mass public is deficient. Testing this theory requires measuring the effects of candidate experience and campaign spending, but one must confront endogeneity problems, because the theory requires potential candidates and campaign contributors to be responsive to district partisan conditions and national partisan tides. By applying an instrumental-variable method to control for selection bias, we found that challenger experience only matters indirectly, through its effect on campaign expenditures, but partisan context matters both directly and indirectly. We theorize that challenger experience is best understood as an informational short- cut: it signals incumbent vulnerability to potential campaign contributors. How much influence does the mass electorate exert on the outcomes of congressional races? Unlike students of presidential elections, congressional scholars have largely followed Kernell and Jacobson (1983), paying primary attention to political elites, for, as Jacobson explains, “The electorate’s ability to exercise democratic control by acting as a ‘rational god of vengeance and reward’ has become more contingent and variable, depending to an increasing degree on elite decisions” (1989, 790). Of paramount interest to these scholars are the decisions made by potential candidates—particularly incumbents (weighing retirement) and experienced challengers (weighing entry)—and potential campaign contributors. Although incumbent House members typically win in excess of 90% of general- election contests, challengers who have previously occupied elective office triumph four times as frequently as inexperienced challengers (Jacobson 1990c). 1 Expenditures fit the same hierarchy: incumbents routinely outspend challengers (see Abramowitz 1991), but experienced challengers routinely outspend amateurs. As a consequence, experienced