Comparing Predictors of the Likelihood of Voting in a Primary and a General Election

Abstract

A before-after telephone interview design at the time of the “super Tuesday” primary in March 1988 finds that political interest accounts for 17% of the variance in predicting a primary vote, while reading newspapers predicts a similar amount of variance in the general election vote. A total of 451 randomly-selected voters in the Richmond, Virginia, area were interviewed. Primary election voters tend to have more political interest and education than do voters in a general election; primary voters are an important subset of American voters.