Brought completely up-to-date with the latest data from the National Election Study and the Federal Election Commission, and including coverage and analysis of the dramatic 2006 midterm elections, this seminal work continues to offer a systematic account of what goes on in congressional elections and demonstrates how electoral politics reflect and shape other components of the political system, with profound consequences for representative government. The Seventh Edition of this work — one of the Longman Classics in Political Science — provides completely up-to-date coverage of congressional election politics, broadly understood.  Jacobson analyzes how congressional campaigns and elections reflect deeper structural patterns and currents in American political life and help determine how — and how well — we are governed.  The book traces the connections between electoral politics in Congress and other important political phenomena and makes questions of representation and responsibility its chief normative concern.