coattail effect

1. The tendency for a popular political party leader to attract votes for other candidates of the same party in an election. For example, the party of a victorious presidential candidate will often win many seats in Congress as well; these congressmen are voted into office “on the coattails” of the president.

Example Sentences

But the polling indicates that Democrats shouldn’t expect the president to offer much in the way of a coattail effect with his fellow churchgoers.

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Before he came to stock car racing, McDowell was an instructor at the Bondurant Racing School in Chandler, Ariz. David Ragan clearly feels a coattail effect from having McDowell as a teammate at Front Row as he readies for Sunday’s Toyota/Save Mart 350 at Sonoma Raceway.

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Voters tend to vote for the same party for president and the House, creating a coattail effect.

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Using data from elections since 1948, Mr. Erikson estimates the coattail effect this way: Every percentage point added to a Clinton victory margin would add half a point to the average Democratic House candidate.

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In baseball’s version of the coattail effect, Kansas City’s Omar Infante was in second place, just 150,000 votes behind Jose Altuve of Houston.

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