The Redistricting Cycle and Strategic Candidate Decisions in U.S. House Races Marc J. Hetherington Bowdoin College Bruce Larson Fairleigh Dickinson University Suzanne Globetti Bowdoin College We examine the impact of the ten-year redistricting cycle on strategic candidate behavior. First, we provide evidence that strategic candidate behavior is a function of an election’s temporal proximity to a redistricting year, finding that quality challengers are less likely to emerge as the redistricting cycle progresses. Next, we show that strategic candidates interpret national and local political con- ditions through the lens of time. Specifically, national political conditions greatly encourage quality challengers early in the redistricting cycle but play a much reduced role later. In addition, incumbents who demonstrate moderate electoral vulnerability in the prior election are more likely to face quality challengers toward the beginning of the redistricting cycle than the end. Much research suggests that national political conditions, usually measured as some indicator of economic health, indirectly influence aggregate congressional election outcomes by encouraging or discouraging quality challengers (Jacobson 1989, 1990; Jacobson and Kernell 1983; but see Born 1986). Similarly, local conditions, like the incumbent’s previous margin of victory, affect whether quality challengers emerge (Bond, Covington, and Fleisher 1985; Jacobson 1989; Krasno and Green 1988). Yet, impressionistically, these conditions seem to matter more at some times than at others. For example, a poor economy in 1982 netted a 26-seat Democratic pickup in the U.S. House of Representatives despite an enormous Republican spending advantage. A better, yet still sluggish economy in 1990 netted the Democrats a mere eight seats with spending close to evenly split. Although other factors are surely at work, the timing of these elections is critical. One took place in the first election after the decennial redrawing of con- gressional district boundaries, while the other took place in its twilight. We demonstrate that quality challengers take account of the ten-year redis- tricting cycle when they decide whether or not to run against incumbents. Not only does the incidence of quality challengers decrease as a redistricting cycle THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, Vol. 65, No. 4, November 2003, Pp. 1221–1234 © 2003 Southern Political Science Association