Partisan Loyalty and the Perceptions of Party, Candidates and Issues

Abstract

ANY STUDENTS of the electoral process would defend the notion that the attitudes and perceptions of individuals are important determinants of the nation's voting patterns.' Indeed, the content of voters' perceptions of parties, candidates and issues appears to be strongly related to both shortterm and long-term fluctuations in election outcomes. One of the most interesting formulations of the relationship between individual perceptions and voting preferences is the six-component model developed at the University of Michigan Survey Research Center.2 These analysts viewed their work as an attempt to construct a model incorporating that set of attitudinal factors which bear on individual choice in any given election. In other words, both long-term and short-term forces had to be captured in a theoretical statement of the voter decision-making process.3 While the authors clearly recognized the longterm effect of such factors as party identification, they nevertheless argued that fixed party loyalties and sociological characteristics cannot account fully for the vote. In particular, neither of these factors, relatively inert through time, can account for the short-term fluctuations in the division of the vote which are of