Projection in the Face of Centrism: Voter Inferences About Candidates' Party Affiliation in Low‐Information Contexts

Abstract

When are voters more likely to project their own political position onto a candidate for office? We investigate this question by examining the assumed partisanship of a (self‐declared) centrist politician, using data from a survey experiment fielded in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In doing so, we build on the social categorization model as well as recent U.S.‐focused political science research on projection and ingroup/outgroup racial divides—extending our analysis to incorporate racial and class similarities/differences across three countries where these divides likely vary in salience. We thus seek: (1) to contribute to research on the inferences citizens draw in nonpartisan elections and low‐information contexts generally and (2) to highlight some potential methodological complications of using partisanship‐less candidates in vignette experiments. Results suggest that even in the face of a self‐declared centrist, voters from across the political spectrum tended to assume shared partisanship in Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Examining projection by ingroup/outgroup divisions indicated that class appears to shape projection across all three countries, but that the racial divide only mattered in the United States. Finally, we also find evidence of counterprojection toward outgroup members—but once again only in the American context.