Voting out incumbents could make partisanship worse

This initially seems counterintuitive. Conventional wisdom holds that a number of factors — human geography (unintentional gerrymandering), the creation of safe, gerrymandered districts built to protect ideologically extreme congressmen, and a host of other factors — have led to a polarized Congress representing only the fringes of both parties. But the data suggest that challengers are even more extreme than the current sitting congressmen. How could that be the case?

One plausible answer is that safe, well-gerrymandered congressmen tend to draw out ideologically extreme opponents. Representatives who are safe from challenges may ward off all but the most ardent “true believers” from the other side, thus making challengers on average more extreme than one would expect. This theory would need to be tested further, but it makes sense of the data up to this point.

Either way, Crowdpac data point towards a dismal conclusion.