Day 10 – Dynamics of Voting

July 11, 2013

Today’s Agenda Continue discussion on political behavior.

2012 Exit Polls Discuss how the makeup of the electorate

varies in different elections and consider potential consequences. Research example: Ballot Initiatives and Electoral

Timing Examine other forms of responsiveness

Sulkin and “issue uptake”

Demographics and Exit Polling CNN – Infographics for each questions

http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president New York Times – Can see historical trends and state-

level breakdown Presidential Election results

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/exit-polls House results

http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/house/exit-polls?gwh=C62EF260D73A926469AC9772A857BD60

Senate results http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/senate/exit-polls?gwh

=2FA48428606705EADA7EE25CAFC4AFF7

Fox News - Result for every question (you can see the number of respondents here.) http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-exit-poll

How Voters Decide Low-information rationality Party loyalties

Explains 90% of vote choice among registered Democrats and Republicans

Independents True independents versus closet partisans

Partisan resurgence Examples of strong versus weak party ties

Split-ticket voting Driven largely by partisan shifts in the South (p.91)

Changing Voter Distributions by Election

Figure 4-2 in DOL

Why do less people vote in midterms?

Does the electorate look different? Affluent More

Educated

Changing Makeup of Voters

Source: McDonald (2010) “Voter Turnout in the 2010 Midterm Election”, The Forum 8(4)

Source: Hannah (2013) “Ballot Initiatives and Electoral Timing” Unpublished.

How might an older group of voters during Midterms affect election results?

Surge and Decline Theory Excitement of a winning presidential

campaign attracts intermittent or peripheral voters. (DOL p.92) How does their participation affect other

candidates? What happens in midterm election years?

Core voters remain “Low stimulus”

Challenges to surge and decline theory. Jacobson and Kernell (1983) – “strategic

politicians” recognize that midterm years are often seen as good years for the out party.

Surge and Decline Theory

From Bafumi, Erikson, Wlezien (2010) “Balancing, Generic Polls, and Midterm Congressional Elections” Journal of Politics 72(3)

Ballot Initiatives and Electoral Timing

“Tell your friends: We lost because of timing, not lack of public support.” 

Scott Morgan – CA Proposition 19 Advocate (Legalization of Marijuana)

Conventional wisdom states that more conservative voters participate in midterm elections.

This should have an even greater effect on direct initiatives – where voters decide on specific policy instead of candidates. What policies might be particularly affected by this?

Following slides are from Hannah, Lee. 2013 “Ballot Initiatives and Electoral Timing”, Unpublished. Parts of paper presented at 2011 and 2012 State Politics and Policy Conference.

Morality Policy and Direct Democracy

Abor-tion

10%

Civil

Rights 4%

Crime Policy 8%

Drugs 6%

English Language 4%

Gaming 34% Guns 2% Gay Rights 10% Assisted

Suicide; 2%

Other 21%

Morality Policy by Category (N=254)

Research Question Does the timing of an election systematically

affect the results of ballot initiative campaigns? Do the demographic differences in the electorate

between midterm and presidential elections affect results? Why yes? Why no?

Do certain candidates provide favorable conditions, or surges, for initiative campaigns? Do popular liberal candidates affect the chances of a

liberal outcome on an initiative? Do popular conservative candidates affect the chances

of a conservative outcome on an initiative. In short, do popular presidential candidates provide a

coat-tail for the initiative campaign?

Defining Surge Elections

Type of Election Election Year

Margin of Victory Notes

Republican Surge Election

1980 9.7 – Reagan (50.7); Carter (41.0)

1984 18.2 – Reagan (58.8); Mondale (40.6)

1988 8.5 – Bush (53.4); Dukakis (45.6)

Democratic Surge Election

1996 8.5 – Clinton (49.2); Dole (40.7)

2008 7.2 – Obama (52.9); McCain (45.7)

Non-Surge Election

1968-1976 --- *Candidates do not take unique stances on morality policy.

1992 5.6 – Clinton (43.0); Bush (37.4)

*Candidacy of Ross Perot complicates Democratic surge arguments.

2000 -.6 – Bush (47.9-); Gore (48.5) *This margin is too close to be considered a surge election.

2004 2.4 – Bush (50.7); Kerry (48.3) *This margin is too close to be considered a surge election.

Model & Analysis Dependent Variable - % Conservative Vote on

an Initiatives Example:

Initiative Category Conservative?

% Yes

D.V.: Conservative Vote

MI – Proposal 08-02 (2008) – Removes some restrictions from embryonic stem cell research

Morality No (0) 52.6 100-52.6 = 47.4

AZ – Prop 202 (1998) – Allow federal office candidates to declare position on abolition of income tax and IRS, and have that appear on ballot.

Tax Yes (1) 45 45

Model – Logistic Regression

CovariateExpected Direction

Education -

Fundamentalist +

Catholic +

Black +/-

Hispanic +/-

Ideology -

Midterm Election +

Special Election +

Gubernatorial Election -

Democratic Surge Election -

Republican Surge Election +

Sta

te D

em

og

rap

hic

Facto

rsEle

cto

ral

Con

text

Facto

rs

Dependent Variable: Conservative Outcome (1)

Three Models:

1- Full Model (254)

2- Model Excluding Gaming (169)

3 - Model only Gaming (85)

Liberal Effects Conservative Effects

-1.05

-1.47

-2.22

1.57

-0.59

Results

State-level demographics have little effect on the odds of a conservative outcome

Timing matters (Model 2): Odds of a conservative outcome is 1 to 4 in Democratic surge

elections. Nearly 5 to 1 in Republican surge elections. Interestingly, odds of a conservative outcome in gaming policy

decreases to nearly 1 to 10 in Republican surge elections. Results are robust for:

Region Political culture (Elazar 1972). Fixed-effects model controlling for states. OLS Models. Close Elections.

Conclusions It is unlikely that the initiative process could be

manipulated in regards to timing.

Conservative outcomes are no more likely in midterm elections and might even be less likely.

Results possibly due some combination of:

Increased initiative awareness in midterms (Smith 2001)

The ability of morality policy initiatives to increase turnout and interest (Nicholson 2003)

The increased mobilization potential of initiative campaigns during midterms (Donovan et al. 2009).

Results suggest that initiative campaigns benefit from the coattails of popular presidential candidates.

Discussion If we are trying to determine whether a

legislator is responsive to their constituents or not, what evidence might we use to build a case?

Legislators as Representatives Mayhew (1974) identifies three general

categories of activities that legislators use to express their interests and promote reelection Advertising Credit-claiming Position-taking

Which aspect is Sulkin investigating?

“In short, elections can promote responsiveness not just by serving as a mechanism through which constituents can replace poorly performing legislators, but also by providing an incentive for all legislators to adapt their behavior in office to avoid a challenge.” Sulkin (2005, p.25)