General Election Vote Research Articles

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

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.

Religion and Political Realignment in the Rocky Mountain States

Unlike previous research on religion and political preference, this study utilized county-level data to analyze whether religious affiliation and church membership help explain why some communities have abandoned the Democratic for the Republican Party. We hypothesized that religion, independent of socioeconomic, demographic, and party identification forces, exerts an independent effect on average Republican voting in general elections for three races: presidential, senatorial, and gubernatorial. In particular, due to the changing nature of issues addressed in federal races (for president and senator), we expected that counties with higher levels of conservative Protestant members would experience realignment in the federal races between the 1950s and 1980s, while those communities with higher proportions of Roman Catholics would not. Through the use of multiple regression techniques, we found that conservative Protestantism in the 1980s, in contrast to the past, was positively associated with Republican electoral strength across all three races, even when controlling for other traditional explanatory factors. For counties with higher levels of Roman Catholics, we found that religion exerted an independent influence, but only for selected races.

Ideological Representativeness of Presidential Primary Voters

Contrary to conventional wisdom and previous research, this article finds little evidence that presidential primary voters are ideologically unrepresentative. In drawing this conclusion, two assertions are made. First, the article argues the appropriate comparison group for primary voters is general election voters who fail to vote in primaries, not all primary nonvoters. The latter group includes habitual nonvoters whose differences from primary voters would be attributable not to the primary process but to general patterns of participation in the United States. Second, the article argues ideology must be defined as more than extremism. Ideology can be construed as a sophisticated belief system or a psychological identification. Only on these latter two definitions do a few minor differences arise between presidential primary voters and general election voters.

The components of voting change in England 1983–1987

Abstract The change in the constituency vote between successive general elections is broken down into a number of components. It is shown that there are regional geographical variations of up to 7.5 per cent of the three-party vote, that by-elections can have a major impact upon the subsequent general election vote, that there is an incumbency effect of undoubted statistical significance which is worth on average between 400 and 500 votes to the incumbent (a potential swing of 800 to 1,000 votes on retirement). The incumbency effect is found to be considerably greater for Labour incumbents than for Conservative incumbents. There is also a gender effect of probable statistical significance, which takes the form of an average loss of between 125 and 250 votes by a female candidate (a potential swing of between 250 and 500 votes)

Presidential Prenomination Preferences and Candidate Evaluations

Recent research has altered our understanding of how voters select a candidate in U.S. presidential elections. Scholars have demonstrated empirically that issues, candidate personalities, candidate evaluations, and party identification interact in a dynamic simultaneous fashion to determine vote choice. Other researchers have shown that prenomination candidate preferences play an integral role in structuring the general election vote. We join together these two important trends to introduce and test a revised model of vote choice, using 1980 NES panel data. The results reconfirm that candidate selection is part of a dynamic simultaneous process and reveal for the first time that prenomination preferences are woven tightly into this causal web.

The British general election of 1987

The change in the constituency vote between successive general elections is broken down into a number of components. It is shown that there are regional geographical variations of up to 7.5 per cent of the three-party vote, that by-elections can have a major impact upon the subsequent general election vote, that there is an incumbency effect of undoubted statistical significance which is worth on average between 400 and 500 votes to the incumbent (a potential swing of 800 to 1,000 votes on retirement). The incumbency effect is found to be considerably greater for Labour incumbents than for Conservative incumbents. There is also a gender effect of probable statistical significance, which takes the form of an average loss of between 125 and 250 votes by a female candidate (a potential swing of between 250 and 500 votes)

Friends and Neighbors Voting in Statewide General Elections

In this brief paper we test V. 0. Key's (1949) notion of friends and neighbors voting. Gubernatorial and senatorial general election candidates from 46 states over the 1976 to 1982 period were examined and results indicate the average candidate polled 3.66 percentage points more of the general election vote in his or her than another candidate from the same party but different county could have expected to garner. Further, this home county advantage is maximized in Democratic nonincumbent candidates from less populated counties.

Selective Participation: Presidential Primary Voters as a Subset of General Election Voters

Presidential primary voters constitute a subset of presidential election voters. Two hypotheses are explored to explain this selective pattern of participation. One hypothesis centers on characteristics of individual voters, whereas the other centers on characteristics of the political environment. The research supports the second hypothesis for Republicans, who were mobilized to vote in the primaries by aspects of the campaign and legal structures. Participation in Democratic primaries, however, was influenced by both contextual and individual factors. Differences between the 1980 Democratic and Republican nomination races are suggested as reasons for the divergent explanations found for participation in the two parties' primaries.

The politics of disgruntlement: Nonvoting and defection among supporters of nomination losers, 1968?1984

This paper focuses on the effect of disgruntlement among those primary voters who supported U.S. presidential nomination losers. It analyzes the general election voting behavior of primary voters in the last five presidential elections in order to determine if differences exist between those supporters of the winning nominee in each party and backers of other candidates who also sought the nomination. A multivariate analysis of the determinants of voter turnout shows significant results only for the Democrats in 1972, when primary voters who supported candidates other than George McGovern were more likely to abstain in the general election. Taking into account the option of defecting to another party in November, both parties appear to have been plagued by a considerable amount of disloyalty on the part of supporters of candidates who failed to win the nomination, although for the Republicans this type of response is confined to the 1980 election. The existence of a third party or independent candidacy may be an important variable influencing the behavior of these disgruntled primary voters.

The Representativeness of Congressional Primary Voters

Previous studies of the personal, political and attitudinal representativeness of primary electorates have produced mixed results. These analyses were based on single states or communities rather than a national sample, did not distinguish between general election voters who did not participate in the primary from those who did not vote in either election, and usually did not use verified voting participation measures. Using a national sample of verified voters, this study provides stronger support for the hypothesis that primary voters are unrepresentative of nonparticipants in important dimensions of political life.

An approach to empirical studies of voting paradoxes: An update and extension

By tradition, Public Choice theorists have pointed out many paradoxes of collective choice. The phenomenon of cyclical majorities and the more general issue of political equilibrium have proven to be fertile searching grounds. One class of paradoxes derives from the intransitivity of social orderings implied by the cycle. As Riker (1982) notes, this property of majority rule is most perplexing and paradoxical to those who hold 'Populist' beliefs that voting reflects a fair and meaningful amalgamation of individual preferences and must, therefore, reflect 'the will of the people.' If voting in general elections and committees is interpreted this way, then the existence of voting cycles and the implied intransitivity; or more generally, the impossibility of any rule for making social choices assuring transitive (sometimes equated with rational) outcomes, shakes the foundations of Populist principles of political philosophy. Another paradox of cyclical majorities and simulations of voting games in general, concerns the stability of political equilibria. The body of theory regarding this issue is skillfully summarized by Shepsle and Weingast (1982) and can be reduced to a simple proposition: With sufficient assumptions regarding the states of participants' knowledge and the manipulability of

Voter Decisionmaking in a Primary Election: An Evaluation of Three Models of Choice

Summative, averaging, and elimination by aspects models of choice were applied to voter decisionmaking in the 1972 New Hampshire presidential primary. Predictions were generated from each of the models and compared to election outcome, candidate preference, and reported vote. The summative and elimination by aspects procedures predicted equally well, and both predicted significantly better than the averaging procedure. Candidate personal attributes were identified by the majority of voters as more important dimensions in deciding for whom to vote than candidate issue positions. Primary elections have many interesting features. Turnout is lower than in general elections. The voters are more involved, and tend to differ from participants in general elections in the same ways that general election voters differ from nonvoters (Ranney and Epstein, 1966; Ranney, 1968). In some states, participation is limited to partisans; in others, independents or members of the rival party may participate if they wish. Often more than two candidates compete for a party's nomination, and voters choosing between them lack the familiar guidepost of party identification. Even nonpartisan elections differ from primaries in this last respect, since voters often know the

Vote municipal et vote législatif. Évolution de 1965 à 1971 dans les villes de plus de 30 000 habitants

Voting in municipal and general elections. Evolution from 1965 to 1971 in towns of over 30 000 inhabitants, by Elisabeth Dupoirier and Gérard Grunberg The maintaining of their strength by the centre parties in municipal elections seems to run against the tendancy towards a bi-polarisation of the political forces which has become more and more evident since 1962 in general elections. A detailed comparison of the voting clusters of the electorate since 1965 in these two types of elections in towns of over 30 000 inhabitants enables us to perceive the differences between them. There is a certain bi-polarisation in municipal elections, though it has come later and is less general. Even when the comparative strength is inversed in municipal elections - a phenomenon which is fairly rare - common elements in municipal and general election clusters give the general structure of the political forces a real unity. The change in relative strength in general elections must have an influence in general elections any attempt to implant the centre in municipal elections is bound to fail. [Revue française de science politique XXII (2), avril 1972, pp. 238-268]

Socio-Economic Conditions and Party Politics in Japan: A Statistical Analysis of the 1969 General Election

L ven a cursory review of Japanese political development during the 1960s can attest to an unmistakable change in the complex interrelations of Japanese political parties. It seems clear that the relative position of the ruling Liberal-Democratic Party (LDP) has somewhat diminished in influence and that the pre-eminence of the Japan Socialist Party (JSP) has substantially dwindled among the progressive elements. At the same time each of the three minor parties-the Clean Government Party (CGP or Komeito), the Japan Communist Party (JCP), and the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP) -has registered an appreciable increase in support during the latest national election held in December 1969. The LDP obtained less than a majority of the popular votes for the second time in 15 years and the JSP suffered a net loss of about 2.7 million votes and 50 seats in the 486-member House of Representatives. These electoral results not only repudiate the current possibility of a functional two-party system for Japan, but also challenge the viability of what Scalapino and Masumi have called a one-and-onehalf-party system.'1 An important question is whether the election results in any way reflect the increasingly affluent and pluralistic conditions of Japan's economic and social life. This article is designed to explore the relation between affluence and voting and to assess the relations between selected socio-economic variables as measured at prefectural levels and variations in party strength in the 1969 general-election vote for the House of Representatives. Japan is composed of 46 local administrative units: 42 ken, or

Measuring the Impact of Local Party Activity on the General Election Vote

How far are voters swayed by the active solicitation of their votes by local party workers and how far by the attractiveness of supporting the dominant or winning party? Here is a study of this question in relation to the explanation of the stability of voter loyalties. It does not reveal a systematic pattern of stronger party activity in precincts where one party receives the greatest voter support, but it does show evidence of effects in both directions. Phillips Cutright is Social Science Analyst with the Social Security Administration and is co-author with Robert A. Dentler of Hostage America, a review of the factors involved in economic, political, and psychological recuperation from nuclear attack.