Presidential Coattails in Historical Perspective

It is agreed that the degree of association between the presidential and congressional election results is an important "Constitutional" variable. But the significance of this association depends on whether it is due to extraneous forces or to the personal attractiveness of the president. In this paper we give a statistical basis for determining the dependence of the vote for members of the House on the attractiveness of the presidential candidate. Further, it is shown that their dependence has decreased rather sharply and is currently at a historical low point.