Late Deciders in U.S. Presidential Elections

Abstract

Despite their obvious importance in close elections, previous research into late-deciding voters has come to quite disparate conclusions regarding their traits, attitudes, and behavior. We seek to clear up this confusion through an analysis of late-deciding voters in U.S. Presidential elections from 1988 to 2004. Moving past cursory analyses that treat late deciders as a monolithic group, we divide late deciders by level of interest in the campaign. Low-interest late deciders have few demographic distinctions from other voters but are less connected to and active in politics. They tend to make vote choice decisions based on party identification and issue evaluations. High-interest late deciders look remarkably like those voters who decide earlier in the campaign: politically knowledgeable and attentive to the campaign. They make vote choice decisions based on party identification and evaluations of the economy. Our findings suggest that analyses that fail to account for the two different groups of late deciders risk mischaracterizing their attitudes and behavior.