| Abstract: | In this article we examine the decisions made by the 85 United States representatives from the 13 states from which United States senators were retiring in 1996 and by the 137 representatives from states holding Senate elections in which incumbents were seeking reelection. We use these data to examine individual-level decision making in order to reassess the conventional wisdom on progressive ambition of House members. Using a decision calculus derived from previous studies, we are able to understand the decisions made by all but a handful of the representatives under study. These findings should prove useful in predicting which representatives will exhibit progressive ambition in the future. |
