Unstable Majorities by Morris P. Fiorina

Author:Morris P. Fiorina [Fiorina, Morris P.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
Published: 2017-05-02T04:00:00+00:00

So independent-leaning Democrats vote Democratic, and independent-leaning Republicans vote Republican, consistent with the covert partisanship view. But suppose in the next election the same four voters report the following patterns:

We still have a perfect relationship: voters vote the way they lean, but voters two and four changed their votes and changed their response to the “closer to” question to match the change in their votes. Rather than covert partisans, they are actually swing voters.

How can we determine whether real-world voting patterns reflect the first or second examples? One way would be to follow independent leaners over several elections to see if they consistently lean and vote in the same direction. Such an analysis has been done, and the reader interested in the details should digest Samuel J. Abrams and Morris P. Fiorina, “Are Leaning Independents Deluded or Dishonest Weak Partisans?” http://cise.luiss.it/cise/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Are-Leaners-Partisans.pdf. For the more casual reader, a brief summary follows.

Leaning Independents Change Their Self-Identification More Than Weak Partisans Do

Presidential vote choice is the primary evidence cited by those who equate leaning independents and weak partisans.14 Petrocik writes, “The almost indistinguishable voting choices of leaners and weak identifiers of the same party is datum number one for the proposition that leaners are partisans, even if their first inclination is to respond to the party identification question by calling themselves independents.”15 As figure 6.2 shows, independent leaners indeed are similar to weak partisans in their presidential voting choices. In fact, they often are more loyal than weak partisans, as in the 1964 Goldwater and 1972 McGovern electoral debacles. But these facts should immediately raise warning signs. According to the American National Election Studies, in 1964 weak Republicans abandoned Barry Goldwater in droves, but independent-leaning Republicans registered support almost 20 percentage points higher. Similarly, in 1972 George McGovern did not win even a majority of weak Democrats, but 60 percent of independent-leaning Democrats supported him. What might explain these puzzling contrasts? Well, perhaps independent Republicans voted more heavily for Goldwater not because they were closet Republicans; rather, they were independents who felt closer to the Republicans in that election because they had decided to vote for Goldwater. Analogously, the high level of independent Democratic support for McGovern may have been because they were independents who liked McGovern and consequently said they leaned Democratic.

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