Accountability in State Legislatures provides the most comprehensive answer to the question: “Do elections hold state legislators accountable for their own performance?” It shows that instead of serving as a referendum on state legislators’ own actions, state legislative elections are dominated by national politics, posing profound problems for democratic accountability. Over a third of incumbent legislators regularly do not face a challenger in either the primary or general election, and almost 90 percent of voters do not know who their state legislator is. Voters also do not appreciably reward or punish state legislators for their representation or state-level policy outcomes, even under favorable conditions for accountability.