Ideology and Candidate Evaluation in the 1984 and 1988 Presidential Elections

Abstract

This article examines the role of liberal-conservative ideology in the process by which members of the mass public evaluated presidential candidates in the 1984 and 1988 elections. Data are taken from the 1984 and 1988 American National Election Studies conducted by the Center for Political Studies at the University of Michigan. We analyze voters' formation of preferences for president, expecting those with different levels of conceptualization to vary in their use of liberal-conservative ideology. Our general expectation is that progressively more ideologically sophisticated voters will integrate their ideological and party identifications and their positions on policy issues in a more consistent and predictable manner than their less sophisticated counterparts. Specific hypotheses derived from this general expectation are confirmed. In addition, there is some evidence that the Republicans' apparent strategy in 1988 to appeal to ideological identification directly paid off among those voters at the lowest level of ideological sophistication.