Meaning
To win office, gain standing, or enjoy success through association with a more popular figure rather than on your own merits - as when lesser candidates on a ticket are swept in alongside a charismatic leader at the top. It usually belittles the beneficiary, implying borrowed popularity and no independent following. Usually disparaging of the rider; in election analysis it can be neutral shorthand for the coattail effect, a measurable phenomenon. Regional use: General English; American political origin.
Origin
A coattail is the flap at the back of a coat, and the political image is of hangers-on clinging to the tails of a popular leader's coat as he sweeps past. Wiktionary records the figurative sense - the success of a figure or movement that transfers to those who associate with it - and lists 'on the coattails of' and 'ride the coattails' as the standard forms. The metaphor flourished with nineteenth-century American ballots: before the secret ballot, voters cast party-supplied tickets printed in a single party column, which encouraged straight-party voting, so a strong presidential nominee genuinely carried down-ballot candidates into office with him. Political scientists later formalized the observation as the coattail effect, and Wikipedia notes that split-ticket voting rose from 13 percent in 1952 to over 40 percent by the 1970s and 1980s as office-column ballots and voting machines spread, weakening the effect. The everyday phrase long ago escaped the psephology journals.
Research Sources
References used to check this entry’s meaning, history, or documented forms.
Variants
- long coattails
- on the coattails of
- ride on someone's coattails
Usage Examples
- Three first-time MPs rode the coattails of the popular premier to seats they could never have won alone.
- The startup rode the coattails of the smartphone boom for a decade before the market moved on.
- Critics said the young senator was riding on the coattails of her famous father rather than building her own record.