The Cost of a Vote: Examining Legislative Incentives in an Election Year

Abstract

Leading up to 2020 elections, North Carolina ended a historically long legislative session in political gridlock and without passing a budget. While a large literature examining voter behavior exists, the impact of legislation passing in an election year on the incumbent party’s likelihood for reelection remains poorly understood. We exploit a novel dataset that links the voter affiliation and voter behavior of government workers with state wage increases. A difference-in-difference strategy is applied to a sample of municipal workers who serve as a baseline group to state workers who received wage increases. Movements in voter alignment, relative to the incumbent governor’s party, are examined to better understand the incentive of passing or contesting legislation that impacts the large voting block of state employees.