The Governorship-Senate Connection: A Step in the Structure of Opportunities Grows Weaker

Ambition theory posits a relationship between the office goalsof politicians and their political behavior. The goals are assumedto be structured by a hierarchy of offices. Any change in therelationships among offices would affect our expectations ofthe behavior of those in the offices. This article reports onone such change. The linkage between the governorships and seatsin the U.S. Senate is apparently growing weaker. A theory ofprogressive ambition is used to specify a set of variables thataffect governors' decisions to run for the Senate. The changein the governors' tenure potential—namely, the increasein the length of their terms and the number of terms the governorsare allowed to serve—is shown to be the variable thathas affected governors' decisions to run for the Senate.