Is it worth its weight? The influence of gubernatorial elections on the composition of Brazil’s Chamber of Deputies (1994-2018)

Abstract

For over two decades, two political parties played the leading role in the Brazilian presidential elections, which led some scholars to consider that the national party system is focused on the presidential race. However, recent studies highlight the significant influence of statewide elections on understanding the Brazilian party system. This paper applies a negative binomial regression model to examine electoral data from 1994 to 2018 and tests the hypothesis that gubernatorial elections are more influential than the presidential campaign in the allocation of seats in the Chamber of Deputies. We highlight the following findings: (i) leading a presidential coalition does not increase the number of seats in the Lower House; (ii) launching gubernatorial candidates raises the number of national representatives elected by each party.

political parties; legislative elections; coattails effect; party system; Brazilian politics