Mayors,Accomplishments,and Advancement

Abstract

This article examines the effects of accomplishments on the career paths of big-city mayors. Using data from 104 cities with populations over 160,000 from 1992 to 2012, this study examines the extent to which performance in economics, crime, and recruiting mega-events affects mayors’ decisions to seek reelection or other offices, or retire. Results indicate those mayors of cities with population growth, a decrease in the crime rate, and that host certain mega-events (presidential nominating conventions) are more likely to seek another office than other mayors. A decrease in the crime rate seems to help mayors win reelection while none of the other accomplishments appear to improve their chances of winning campaigns for other offices.

Keywords

mayor careers accomplishments mega-events crime

In the late 1960s, the Vietnam War was escalating and race riots continued in certain cities. One evening, President Lyndon Johnson sat in the White House surrounded by advisors. There was a great deal of frustration in the room because the war was not going well. The advisors were in a temperamental state but the president was trying to enliven their moods. One of the aides asked him how he could keep up his spirits when the news continued to be so bad. President Johnson famously responded, “When the burdens of the presidency seem unusually heavy, I always remind myself it could be worse. I could be a mayor.”

This anecdote from President Johnson highlights why the office of big-city mayor is typically viewed as a capstone rather than a stepping stone to higher office: It is simply hard to succeed. But when they do succeed, we would expect their accomplishments to affect their career choices because accomplishments give ambitious politicians the ability to claim credit (Mayhew 1974). In seeking to understand the relationship between accomplishments and advancement in base offices, we focus on mayors. Like other executives, they have greater ability than individual legislators to control the agenda and focus on issues that voters favor, and to claim sole credit for their accomplishments (Burden 2002). As such, their accomplishments while in office should play a prominent role in their career decisions. Specifically, we expect that accomplishments in office, including economic growth, decreasing crime, and recruiting mega-events such as presidential nominating conventions, encourage them to seek other offices, to seek reelection, and win these elections.

How accomplishments propel candidacies is critical to the accountability of the U.S. democratic system. Indeed, as Linda Fowler (1993) argued, “. . . candidates are indispensable links between citizens and their government” (p. 19). Fundamentally, who is elected mayor—or who leaves the office to pursue other opportunities—determines who governs and thus the public choices that are made on behalf of citizens. If voters reward accomplished politicians with retention or promotion, ambitious candidates have greater incentive to serve their citizens. If mayors, for example, believe they will be rewarded for their economic development activities, they have an incentive to develop and implement strategies to recruit businesses to town and grow the ones that are already present. If mayors seek and win other offices, they can use their experiences to represent citizens in a new way, using their insights into city government in state and national forums. And when mayors relinquish office, they open opportunities for other talented local officials to serve.

Mayors and Progressive Ambition

Conventional wisdom has traditionally held that the office of big-city mayor is a dead-end job politically (Murphy 1980). In reality, mayors may not be any less likely to seek another office than other types of officials (McNitt 2010). Yet there is agreement that mayors do not do so frequently. This may be due in part to the fact that being a big-city mayor offers a constituency and ability to affect policy that is larger than many other types of political offices (Francis and Kenny 2000) and to the possibility that many local government officials are not interested in state or federal office (Lascher 1993; Sokolow 1989). Nonterm limited mayors also face the opportunity cost of having to give up their current job (which, as incumbents, they are likely to retain) to risk the more uncertain possibility of competing for a different office. Challenging an incumbent certainly is a risky proposition. But even in an open seat race, there is the likelihood that other quality candidates will seek the same seat as well. Thus, even if a mayor has ambition for higher office, he or she then faces the decision of when to run (Maestas et al. 2006).

The literature on strategic candidacies emphasizes the importance of the timing of the decision for quality candidates (Berkman and Eisenstein 1999; Jacobson and Kernell 1983; Krasno and Green 1988). Quality candidates already holding office, such as a sitting mayor, tend to be risk averse and are unlikely to surrender their current position. Instead, they will wait for open seats, mistakes by the incumbent (e.g., scandal), and/or favorable national conditions (e.g., presidential popularity, economic conditions) to seek another office. The challenge for any individual office holder, however, is that many other ambitious office holders are monitoring the same conditions and reaching the same conclusions about the best time to run. When a seat opens, for example, many quality candidates may run, thus limiting the ability of any one of those officials to win (Sanbonmatsu 2002; W. J. Stone and Maisel 2003).

This raises the question of what will actually convince a mayor to risk his or her current job to seek another office. (Or what will get them to seek another term rather than seeking less stress in retirement or a more lucrative job in the private sector?) One way for a mayor or other official to gauge the “right” time to run and to distinguish himself or herself from potential competitors is based on his or her accomplishments. Many see that U.S. elections at all levels are referenda on an incumbent if one is running. An incumbent’s accomplishments are part of that referendum (Fiorina 1981).

When politicians seek another office, they use their accomplishments in their current position to demonstrate their qualifications and competence for the office they are seeking (Fenno 1978; Mondak 1995). As intuitive as this observation is, few studies of progressive ambition have incorporated measures of specific accomplishments into their models. Herrick and Moore (1993), for example, found that progressively ambitious House members are more active legislatively but less successful in passing laws. That is, they use legislation to take positions rather than claim credit (Mayhew 1974). Provost (2010) found that Attorneys General who participate in multistate lawsuits are more likely to run for governor. Accomplishments, nevertheless, may be particularly important in local elections because off-year elections tend to draw hard-core voters attentive to local issues (Oliver 2012). Issues and accomplishments are particularly important for challengers to provide a rationale for voters to turn aside an incumbent whom they have supported in the past (Kahn and Kenney 1999) and for incumbents to demonstrate their competence and mitigate unfavorable winds in the external political environment.

Given that citizens know little about government generally (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1997) and local government specifically (Oliver 2001), ambitious mayors are more likely to run when they have highly salient accomplishments for which they can claim credit. Krause and Melusky (2014) found that the political effects of positive or negative accomplishments are short lived because voters have generally short attention spans. Thus, ambitious politicians need to take advantage of them while they are salient, or time these events appropriate to election cycles.

Voters are also more likely to evaluate officials on items that are perceived to be central to their official responsibilities. For mayors, promoting economic development and combating crime are salient elements of their jobs (Bowman 1987; Eisinger 1988; Elkin 1987; Gerber and Hopkins 2011; Judd and Swanstrom 2014; Logan and Molotch 1987; Stone 1989).¹ For example, McNitt (2010) found that accomplishments, such as building key infrastructure projects, reducing crime, and increasing spending on social services, improve a mayor’s chances of retention. Similarly, McCabe and associates (2008) found that city managers tend to be rewarded with longer tenures when economic times are good and are pushed out when times are tougher.

Salient events and crises are also particularly important for voters to gain some basis for evaluating the performance of local officials (Arceneaux and Stein 2006; Atkeson and Maestas 2012). A big convention, such as the Democratic or Republican National Conventions and other mega-events, fit this description (Bowman 1987). Mega-events would seem to be an ideal accomplishment for which mayors could claim credit.

Most mayors are consistently active in trying to recruit businesses to their city and attract corporate and fraternal conventions (e.g., Eisinger 2000; Judd 2003). But unlike business and fraternal conventions, competing successfully to host a presidential nominating convention is an important civic validation of the quality of the city and the effectiveness of its entrepreneurial efforts. This is due in large part to the extensive media exposure associated with this kind of mega-event relative to others. Local residents presumably should be impressed by the tourism dollars brought to the city by hosting and their stature in the firmament of world class cities demonstrated by the media attention and the honor of hosting the mega-event. Mayors certainly have every reason to expect that citizens will reward their involvement in mega-events and will incorporate this expectation into their decisions regarding how to continue their political careers.

All mega-events demand effective coordination among multiple levels of government (especially with regard to security), effective communication among stakeholders and local residents, and simultaneously delivering routine services to residents while catering to the special needs of visitors and dignitaries. Furthermore, all mega-events have economic impacts associated with them and most have broader economic development spillovers. However, not all mega-events are likely to have equal effects on mayors’ career decisions. Hidden infrastructure, such as healthy sewer and water lines, and increased K-12 graduation rates are critical elements in the economic development health of a community (Rosentraub and Swindell 2009; Savitch and Kantor 2002). But they are hidden and rarely carry significant news headlines. Sports-related mega-events, such as the NCAA Final Four Tournament or the NFL Super Bowl, certainly have economic impacts and are news worthy, but their economic development value is far more limited and tends to be quite temporary (Lauermann 2015).

Unlike these mega-events, presidential nominating conventions are a special breed because of their explicitly political orientation, and they hold the national spotlight for three or four days, not just an afternoon or evening. Mayors also spend considerable time and effort lobbying party officials to win the bid and promoting the bid to local residents. Once the host city is selected, mayors spend time on the phone and traveling to talk to major donors to persuade them to contribute to the host committee (Heberlig, Leland and Swindell, forthcoming). Having contacts with a large number of nonlocal mega-donors is rare for most local politicians and thus can help convince mayors that they can generate the financial support needed to seek higher office. “In-party” mayors (58% of host mayors since 1992) are especially likely to make contacts with, and receive encouragement from, the variety of party officials, activists, campaign consultants, and donors who attend the convention. Thus, for these political reasons, we hypothesize that those mayors who host political conventions are more likely to seek higher office than mayors who host other types of mega-events. And, therefore, we also test whether in-party mayors are more likely to run than other host mayors.

While the economic impact and development benefits associated with hosting mega-events tend to be geographically limited in and around the metropolitan area (and ephemeral over time), winning the bid and hosting a presidential nominating convention demonstrate an ability to execute economic development tasks. Hosting such an event can also be viewed as having a statewide or regional economic impact and could be used to spread goodwill toward a mayor if he or she plans to run for state or federal office. For example, mayors spend considerable time working across party lines with local officials from across the region, as well as state officials, to recruit and implement the convention. Such experiences surely lead them to extrapolate to an ability to appeal to voters beyond their city.² Similarly, many businesses and members of law enforcement from nearby cities and states are brought to the city to work during the convention,³ earning the mayor goodwill of these important groups.

We argue that presidential nominating conventions are a powerful stimulus to progressive ambition because they combine a salient accomplishment with the candidate recruitment activities by party officials and their agents. Even though conventions are more orchestrated than in years past, they remain intriguing to the American public because they offer voters a chance to see other Americans from around the nation gathering for a general purpose—to elect the next leader of the country (Hood 1992). This is an energizing event. Such powerful experiences can alter politicians’ career goals (Gaddie 2004). Maestas et al. (2006) concluded that officials who seek higher office are those who have the experiences and resources that are most easily transferable to the campaign for the new office. These officials have the experiences that allow them to take advantage of opportunities more easily. The network of contacts developed by mayors during the implementation of political conventions and the repeated media exposure the mayor receives prior to and during the convention certainly qualifies and thus is likely to encourage them to seek higher office.

Hypotheses

Theories of political ambition typically posit that politicians make career decisions based on a cost–benefit analysis of seeking reelection versus retiring or seeking another office (e.g., Black 1972; Rohde 1979). These theories also assume that all politicians are progressively ambitious in the sense that they would accept another office if it could be obtained without cost. While this may not always be the case in local politics (e.g., Lascher 1993; Sokolow 1989), minimizing the costs of seeking higher office (or seeking reelection) will likely increase the probability that mayors will indulge that choice, while increasing the costs of seeking higher office (or retaining office) will decrease the probability that mayors will choose that option.

In this article, we are particularly interested in the effects of mayoral accomplishments on a mayor’s career prospects, specifically economic development, crime, and hosting presidential nominating conventions. Economic development and population growth are priority issues for mayors (e.g., Logan and Molotch 1987) and, regardless of the extent to which they are under the control of local officials, are accomplishments that affect their career trajectories (Arnold and Carnes 2012; Krause and Melusky 2014; McCabe et al. 2008; McNitt 2010). We include two measures of growth: population change and economic change (per capita income). The Measurement Appendix includes details on all the measurements and data sources in this analysis.

Substantial positive growth in their cities should increase the likelihood that mayors will seek other office. Our expectations are mixed regarding how slow or negative growth should affect retirement decisions. The strategic politicians’ thesis (Jacobson and Kernell 1983) would suggest that mayors facing negative or slow growth in their cities should be more likely to retire to avoid punishment from voters. Given that many slow growth or declining cities have been facing such economic trends for some time, and that local governments face constraints in addressing such trends (e.g., Peterson 1981), mayors of these cities may or may not face substantial risk in seeking reelection.⁴ Likewise, declines in per capita income in a city in a four-year period are probably part of a national recession, and voters are unlikely to hold a mayor primarily responsible for the economic hit. Alternatively, the stress of dealing with the challenges of high growth may increase the likelihood of burnout and retirement for mayors.

Mayors who preside over decreases in their city’s crime rate should be more likely to seek reelection or higher office. Arnold and Carnes (2012) found crime rates affect the approval ratings of New York City’s mayors. One can easily anticipate the attack ads from opponents when crime has risen during a mayor’s recent tenure. Mayors interested in higher office certainly can foresee such attacks and are likely to delay seeking office until the crime rate has retreated. We measure changes in the city’s rate of violent crime because it is more likely to be politically salient than property crime.⁵

Finally, the mayor’s success in recruiting a mega-event, especially a political convention, should increase his or her likelihood of seeking another office. And, if encouragement from party activists who attend the convention is a key mechanism through which recruitment for higher office occurs, in-party mayors should be more likely to seek higher office than other host mayors. This analysis includes the following as mega-events because the bid process, the security requirements, and media presence are similar to presidential nominating conventions: G-8 Summits, NATO Summits, NCAA Final Four tournaments, Super Bowl, World Cup tournaments, and the Olympics.

One significant complication in testing the relationship between hosting conventions and career decisions is the underlying issue of a mayor’s ambition. One could easily argue that ambition would drive mayors both to seek higher office and to seek a legacy-building accomplishment such as a hosting presidential nominating convention. From this perspective, finding a relationship between hosting conventions and seeking other offices would not tell us whether the convention actually increased the probability of office seeking above the ambitious politician’s natural inclinations. Alternatively, if the mayor did not win the bid, he or she may be more likely to delay retirement until he or she has completed the convention quest.

There is a way, however, to tease out the difference: examine cities that bid for presidential nominating conventions and are not selected by the national party committees. If seeking a convention is a sign of ambition, mayors of bid cities should behave similarly to host mayors with regard to future office-seeking behavior.⁶ The data set includes cities that submitted bids and thus the analysis controls for the mayors’ actions to assess whether it is the ambition inherent in the bid that matters or whether the act of hosting has an independent effect on career decisions.

From a methodological perspective, then, we argue that hosting a presidential nominating convention provides a “treatment” that is unlike bidding for a convention or hosting another type of mega-event. Exposure to the political environment of hosting a convention stimulates more serious consideration of the viability of a successful campaign for other offices compared with the more purely “administrative” tasks associated with hosting other mega-events or from an unsuccessful bid for a convention’s failure to expose the mayor to a treatment.

A mayor’s accomplishments are probably one part of his or her decision-making calculus, but the opportunity structure also affects office seeking (Schlesinger 1966). Two variables are critical in the local opportunity structure: (1) whether the mayor is term-limited and (2) whether there are open seats available for other offices. Term limits obviously prevent a mayor from choosing to run for reelection and force a decision either to retire or seek another office. Open seats represent critical opportunities, given the difficulty and cost associated with unseating an incumbent. Mayors should be more likely to run for another office when seats are open. While there are many potential offices that could attract mayoral interest (see Table 1), this analysis uses open governorships and U.S. Senate seats as the primary measure of open seat opportunities.

Table 1.

Career Decisions by Big-City Mayors, 1992–2012.

Outcome	Number of Career Decisions	% of Decisions
Sought reelection	360	57.1
Lost reelection	42	6.7
Retired from office	200	31.7
Sought another office	70	11.1
State elective office^a	26	4.1
U.S. House	18	2.9
Appointed	12	1.9
U.S. Senate	9	1.4
County Office	3	0.5
State Legislature	2	0.3
Total mayoral electoral decisions	607
Total mayors	364

Note. The number of electoral decisions exceeds the number of mayors because many mayors serve multiple terms, thus deciding to run for reelection at least once prior to a decision to seek another office or retire.

Governor (20), Lieutenant Governor (4), Attorney General (1), Secretary of State (1).

An additional element in whether the mayor seeks another office is the overlap between the mayor’s current constituency and the electorate of the office he or she is seeking (e.g., Rohde 1979). The more people who already know the mayor and who have voted for him or her, the easier it will be to convince them to support the mayor for a different office in the future.⁷ Simply put, the larger the city is relative to the state’s population, the more likely the mayor will be to seek another office. Furthermore, high profile or highly visible mega-events like a presidential nominating convention can serve as a signal of the ability of the mayor to achieve economic development goals that can be appealing to voters outside the home jurisdiction, even if the benefits of the mega-event did not accrue to residents outside that jurisdiction.

Finally, the mayor’s existing tenure and age are likely to affect his or her career choices. Mayors are naturally more likely to be older when they retire, but younger mayors are more likely to seek other offices. Seeking the office of mayor at a young age itself is a sign of ambition, and younger politicians can enjoy the benefits of higher office for a longer period of time—assuming continued success at reelection—before reaching a natural retirement age. We have mixed expectations for the effects of tenure on office seeking. On one hand, politicians who have shorter tenures should be more likely to seek other offices because they have less invested in their current office. One the other hand, some length of tenure is necessary to prove one’s qualifications and to generate accomplishments. All else equal, longer tenure should increase the probability of retirement.

Research Design

To examine the effect of accomplishments on mayors’ career trajectories, we gathered data on a list of 104 cities over the past two decades. We chose cities to investigate based on whether their population was larger than the population of the smallest city that had received an invitation to bid for a presidential nominating convention between 1992 and 2012. For example, in 1990, Salt Lake City’s population was 159,936; by 2013, it was 191,180. Each city meeting the population threshold is a case in each convention cycle between 1992 and 2012, allowing for a pooled cross-sectional design. Many mayors appear multiple times in the data set as they serve across multiple convention cycles. The analysis employs robust standard errors clustered by city to adjust for the fact that these observations are not independent—Cities are cases in each election cycle (1992–2012).

The analysis also employs the standard practice of using biographies to trace the career choices of mayors (McNitt 2010; Murphy 1980), though technology now facilitates searching for online biographies and local news reports through Newsbank. The database also includes information on mayors’ tenure and age gathered in this manner.

Results

We find that most of the big-city mayors sought reelection (57.1%) in the past two decades, 31.7% retired, and 11.1% sought another office. This is slightly lower than the 17% who sought another office in McNitt’s (2010) data covering a much longer time period. Slightly less than half (44%) of the progressively ambitious office seekers won. Only 6.7% of mayors seeking reelection were defeated. Table 1 reports the types of offices sought by progressively ambitious mayors and the frequency with which they sought those offices. Statewide offices were the most frequent target of mayoral ambition, and overwhelmingly mayoral candidates campaigned for governor. The U.S. House of Representatives was the next most frequent choice, followed by appointment to an executive branch position (state or federal) and the U.S. Senate. To put the infrequency of mayoral Senate bids into context, there were nearly as many mayors removed for criminal conduct (six) as ran for the U.S. Senate (nine)! A few mayors sought county-level or state legislative office, and almost as many died in office (three). No mayors in the data set sought election to or were appointed to judicial offices.

The analysis uses multinomial logit to analyze the career choices made by city mayors in each election cycle (Kiewiet and Zeng 1993). Multinomial logit is appropriate because the three choice options—retire, seek reelection, or seek another office—are unordered. Multinomial logit allows us to compare the effects of each independent variable relative to each choice option. In this case, we analyze the choices of retirement and seeking another office compared with the choice of seeking reelection. Table 2 presents the results.⁸ For each independent variable that attains statistical significance, we calculate the variable’s substantive effect on the career choice. Specifically, for continuous variables, we calculate the effect of a two standard deviation change—one standard deviation above and one standard deviation below the mean. For discrete variables, we calculate the effect of a change from the minimum to the maximum value (see Probability columns in Table 2).

Table 2.

Multinomial Regression of Mayoral Career Choice, 1992–2012.

	Sought Other Office			Retired
	Coefficient	SE	Probability	Coefficient	SE	Probability
Accomplishments
Population growth	0.003*	0.002	.03	0.001	0.002
Income growth	−0.06	0.08		0.05	0.06
Violent crime	−47.12*	30.14	−.07	−30.44*	18.99	−.07
Convention host	0.72*	0.53	.12	−1.46***	0.58	−.24
In-party host	0.04	0.48		−0.04	0.36
Convention bid	−1.02*	0.73	−.03	−0.03	0.36
Mega-events	−0.56	0.49		−0.08	0.30
Opportunity structure
Term limited	3.02***	0.69	.09	3.44***	0.54	.51
Open seats	0.52***	0.19	.07	0.12	0.16
Population ratio	0.0005**	0.0003	.04	−0.0004	0.0003
Age	−0.04**	0.02	−.05	0.04***	0.01	.09
Tenure	0.07**	0.03	.08	0.03*	0.02	.07
N = 560
Model Wald χ²= 97.22 (p < .01)
McFadden’s Pseudo-R²= .14

Note. Probability changes for statistically significant continuous variables are calculated based on a two standard deviation change—one standard deviation above and one standard deviation below the mean. For discrete variables, the effect is calculated based on the minimum to the maximum value change. These appear in the Probability columns.

p < .10. **p < .05. ***p < .01 (one-tailed test).

Table 2 reveals considerable support for our key hypotheses. We focus our discussion on the predictors of office seeking because that choice, rather than retirement, is core to our theory. Several accomplishments relate to seeking office. Mayors of cities with a growing population, a decrease in violent crime and those that have hosted political conventions are all more likely to seek to advance. Hosting a convention has the largest probability increase on seeking other office and also decreasing the probability of retirement (appropriate caution is warranted here given the low number of cases and high standard errors). These accomplishments provide a message that mayors can use to tout their governing abilities. Of course, the converse is also true: Mayors know that evidence of that their city is becoming a less desirable place to live can be used against them. Mayors are unlikely to risk a run for higher office after a major increase in crime, for example.

Unlike hosting a political convention,⁹ just bidding for a convention or hosting some other form of mega-event does not spur mayors’ ambitions. Mayors of unsuccessful bidders in fact are less likely to seek another office. This evidence helps to assure us that seeking conventions is not an indicator of ambition in the same way that seeking office is. In addition, the motivating effect of hosting conventions does not appear to be driven solely or mostly by party activists prodding the mayor during the convention: Mayors of the same party as the convention are no more likely than other mayors to seek office.¹⁰ These results show that political conventions themselves seem to act as a stimulus for mayor’s political careers: Host mayors are more likely either to use the experience to advance or to use it as a rationale to continue their investment in the city through reelection.

The opportunity structure variables are all significantly related to office seeking. Mayors who are term-limited, who have more open seat opportunities, who have large constituencies relative to the state population, who are younger, and who have longer tenures as mayor are all significantly more likely to seek other offices. The probability scores indicate that term limits, tenure, and open seats have moderate effects, while age and the city/state population ratio have small effects on decisions to seek other offices. Retirements are significantly more likely when the mayor is term-limited, is older, and has longer tenure.

These findings confirm that mayors, like other politicians, are strategic in their efforts to attain office. They seek other offices when the opportunity costs are lowest and the chances of success are highest. Critically, they time their advancement when they have notable accomplishments on their records that they believe new constituents will find appealing.

But Do They Win?

The evidence in Table 2 shows that accomplished mayors are more likely to seek other offices. When they run for office, do their accomplishments make them more attractive for voters? We examine this question using simple chi-square comparisons. As mayors are running for a variety of different offices, it would be problematic to create a model that combined them.¹¹

Only one accomplishment, decreasing violent crime, makes a statistically significant difference in mayors’ rates of reelection. When the violent crime rate has increased, 16.4% of mayors lose reelection compared with 8.9% of mayors who presided over a decrease in violent crime (χ² < 0.03). Population growth, income growth, and hosting mega-events are unrelated to probabilities of reelection.¹² Hosting political conventions also are unrelated to retention: Only one mayor who hosted a political convention was defeated in his bid for reelection (David Dinkins of New York; 5.9% compared with 11.7% of nonhosting mayors, χ² = 0.46). None of the measures of accomplishments improved the chances that mayors who sought another office would win.¹³

The results suggest that few of the accomplishments are related to mayors’ chances of reelection or their chances of winning other offices. Part of the story is surely that mayors tend to be defeated for idiosyncratic reasons (Oliver 2012). But why would accomplishments entice mayors to run for office, yet fail to help them attain those offices? Accomplishments likely induce mayors to run because they give the mayor a message on which to campaign. It is an element of the campaign they can control. Many other elements that affect the outcome of the campaign cannot be controlled by the mayor, including their opponent’s experience and accomplishments, the national economy and political environment, and voters’ willingness to weight criteria other than partisanship and name recognition. More general criteria of qualification, competence, and integrity, rather than specific accomplishments, affect attainment of other offices too (Fenno 1978; Mondak 1995). Moreover, to the extent that a big-city mayor’s accomplishments are seen by voters as unique to a big-city environment, voters outside the city may not see those accomplishments as predictors that the mayor will understand and assist with their problems. Having a record of short-term accomplishment increases the probability that the mayor will decide that the time is now to run, but it is apparently not sufficient to outweigh all the other elements of the choice that voters consider.

Conclusion

Ambitious politicians look for opportunities to advance. They look for open seats and a favorable ratio of old to new constituents. Younger politicians are more likely to seek to move when they can reap the benefits of the new office for longer periods of time. Our contribution is to document the role that accomplishments play in their strategic calculation. Winning a new office requires demonstrating to new constituents that one is qualified. Having a recent record of accomplishment in office gives mayors that sense of qualification as well as a message to take to new voters. Our evidence shows that growth, fighting crime, and landing political conventions spur mayors’ ambitions.

The cumulative weight of the evidence in this article illustrates the precise way that mega-events generally, and political conventions specifically, shape mayoral careers. For most mega-events, the effects are minimal: Hosting one is not a springboard for seeking higher office nor is it a credential that impresses voters when they do seek office. Our evidence suggests that presidential nominating conventions are a special breed of mega-event from a careerism standpoint. Mayors of host cities are significantly more likely to seek to retain office or to use it as a launching pad to seek other important political posts thereafter.

The evidence here suggests that it is the experience of the convention itself that stimulates the ambition of mayors. Mayors of unsuccessful bid cities are not more likely to seek other offices compared with other mayors. In the process of implementing the convention, host mayors interact with major donors to raise money for the host committee, lobby for assistance from the state and federal government, and develop plans with federal, state, and other local agencies. Throughout the process of recruiting and implementing the convention, they attract substantial local media attention for their efforts. In short, they develop networks and a sense of accomplishment that convince them that they can do “big things.” The donor contacts in particular help convince them that higher office is achievable. Thus, they are more likely to seek other offices. However, it is not the specific encouragement of party activists who attend the convention that boost the mayor’s ambitions as evidenced by the lack of significant difference between in-party and out-party mayors seeking other offices. While conventions may stimulate mayors’ ambitions, the credential is not sufficiently impressive to voters to guarantee their success in seeking higher office. At best, it is one piece of an overall record of achievement for mayors to take before the electorate.

Indeed, the accomplishment that has the most effect on mayors’ probability of retention is their record on crime (Arnold and Carnes 2012; McNitt 2010). Given the visceral nature of violent crime for voters, the attention it gets is not surprising. This finding is also reassuring in the sense that mayors are heavily evaluated on a criterion (public safety) that is a core responsibility of local government, and as such, an outcome over which they have some degree of control.

Certainly, there are limitations to our study on which future research can build. We do not, for example, measure the mayor’s actual ambition for higher office, the potential costs to their family, or the political predispositions of their sought-after constituency. And it is possible that other accomplishments encourage office seeking as well—such as the completion of highly visible infrastructure projects. But we do provide evidence that some specific accomplishments matter, a point that has largely been neglected in the literature on progressive ambition (cf. Herrick and Moore 1993; Provost 2010).

Footnotes

Measurement Appendix

Age: Mayor’s age at the time of each presidential election (from local news reports or calculated from online biographies).

Career choice (dependent variable): 1 = sought other office; 0 = sought reelection; −1 = retired.

Convention host: City hosted a presidential nominating convention during the mayor’s tenure.

Convention bid: City bid unsuccessfully for a presidential nominating convention during the mayor’s tenure.

Crime: Change in the city’s rate of violent crime since the last presidential election (calculated with data from the FBI’s Uniform Crime Statistics and population data from the Census Bureau). Violent crimes include murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault.

In-party mayor: 1 = host mayor is a member of the party holding its convention; 0 = non–host mayor; −1 = host mayor is not a member of the Convention Party.

Income growth: Change in per capita income in the city since the last presidential election (calculated with data from the Census Bureau, 1988–2012).

Mega-events: Cumulative number of mega-events (excluding presidential nominating conventions) hosted by the city during the incumbent mayor’s tenure up to and including the current president cycle. We count the following as mega-events because cities must bid for them and because the security requirements are similar to presidential nominating conventions: G-8 Summits, NATO Summits, NCAA Final Four tournaments, Super Bowl, World Cup tournaments, and the Olympics.

Open seat: 2 = Both Governor and U.S. Senate contests have no incumbent during mayoral election cycle; 1 = either Governor or U.S. Senate contest has no incumbent during mayoral election cycle; 0 = both Governor and U.S. Senate contest have incumbents during mayoral election cycle.

Population growth: Change in city’s population since the last presidential election (calculated with data from the Census Bureau, 1988–2012).

Population ratio: Ratio of city population to state population (calculated with data from the Census Bureau, 1988–2012).

Tenure: Incumbent’s number of years in office at the time of the mayoral election for elections between 1992 and 2012.

Term limit: 1 = mayor reached term limit; 0 = mayor did not reach term limit, or city does not restrict mayor’s service (calculated based on online lists of local term limits or city web page).

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Eric S. Heberlig (PhD, The Ohio State University, 1997) has published four books and numerous articles on political parties, Congress, and campaign finance. The book titled Congressional Parties, Institutional Ambition, and the Financing of Majority Control won the 2014 D. B. Hardeman Prize.

Justin McCoy (BA, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 2015) was a Charlotte Research Scholar and is a candidate for a Master of Public Administration degree at UNC Charlotte.

Suzanne M. Leland (PhD, University of Kansas, 1999) has edited two books and published several articles on urban policy, public administration, planning, and economic development.

David A. Swindell (PhD, Indiana University, 1997) is the director of the Center for Urban Innovation and an associate professor in the School of Public Affairs at Arizona State University. His work focuses primarily on community and economic development, especially public financing of sports facilities; the contribution of sports facilities to the economic development of urban space; collaborative arrangements with public, private, and nonprofit organizations for service delivery; and citizen satisfaction and performance measurement standards for public management and decision making.

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