Alan I. Abramowitz

Is Polarization a Myth

This article uses data from the American National Election Studies and national exit polls to test Fiorinas assertion that ideological polarization in the American public is a myth. Fiorina argues that twenty-first-century Americans, like the midtwentieth-century Americans described by Converse, “are not very well-informed about politics, do not hold many of their views very strongly, and are not ideological” (2006, 19). However, our evidence indicates that since the 1970s, ideological polarization has increased dramatically among the mass public in the United States as well as among political elites. There are now large differences in outlook between Democrats and Republicans, between red state voters and blue state voters, and between religious voters and secular voters. These divisions are not confined to a small minority of activists—they involve a large segment of the public and the deepest divisions are found among the most interested, informed, and active citizens. Moreover, contrary to Fiorinas suggestion that polarization turns off voters and depresses turnout, our evidence indicates that polarization energizes the electorate and stimulates political participation.

Explaining Senate Election Outcomes

Aggregate-level data are used in this analysis to explain the outcomes of Senate elections between 1974 and 1986. Using the individual Senate contest as the unit of analysis permits estimating the relative influence of a wide variety of factors on Senate election results including political characteristics of states, characteristics of the candidates, and national political conditions. Of these factors candidate characteristics had the strongest impact on the outcomes of Senate elections. The importance of candidate characteristics has had two major consequences for Senate elections. First, two-party competition has spread to every region of the country: in Senate elections, no state can be considered safe for either party. Second, money is probably now more important than ever, especially for challengers and candidates for open seats.

Incumbency, Campaign Spending, and the Decline of Competition in U.S. House Elections

The 1986 and 1988 U.S. House elections set all-time records for reelection of incumbents. This paper proposes and tests a comprehensive model of House election outcomes and uses this model to explain competition for House seats. The results indicate that the extraordinarily low level of competition in recent House elections is directly attributable to two trends which affected these elections during the 1980s: the increasing cost of House campaigns and the declining ability of House challengers to raise campaign funds. After controlling for inflation, a dollar of campaign spending in 1984 or 1986 yielded a much lower rate of electoral return for House challengers than a dollar of campaign spending in 1974 or 1976. In addition, between 1980 and 1988, average spending by House challengers declined by more than 30% in real dollars. Public financing of campaigns could increase competition for House seats, but only if a very high level of funding was provided.

Incumbency, Redistricting, and the Decline of Competition in U.S. House Elections

Competition in U.S. House elections has been declining for more than 50 years and, based on both incumbent reelection rates and the percentage of close races, the 2002 and 2004 House elections were the least competitive of the postwar era. This article tests three hypotheses that attempt to explain declining competition in House elections: the redistricting hypothesis, the partisan polarization hypothesis, and the incumbency hypothesis. We find strong support for both the partisan polarization hypothesis and the incumbency hypothesis but no support for the redistricting hypothesis. Since the 1970s there has been a substantial increase in the number of House districts that are safe for one party and a substantial decrease in the number of marginal districts. However, this shift has not been caused by redistricting but by demographic change and ideological realignment within the electorate. Moreover, even in the remaining marginal districts most challengers lack the financial resources needed to wage competitive campaigns. The increasing correlation among district partisanship, incumbency, and campaign spending means that the effects of these three variables tend to reinforce each other to a greater extent than in the past. The result is a pattern of reinforcing advantages that leads to extraordinarily uncompetitive elections.

Exploring the Bases of Partisanship in the American Electorate: Social Identity vs. Ideology

This article uses data from the 1952-2004 American National Election Studies and the 2004 U.S. National Exit Poll to compare the influence of ideology and membership in social groups on party identification. Contrary to the claim by Green, Palmquist, and Schickler (2002) that party loyalties are rooted in voters’ social identities, we find that party identification is much more strongly related to voters’ ideological preferences than to their social identities as defined by their group memberships. Since the 1970s, Republican identification has increased substantially among whites inside and outside of the South with the most dramatic gains occurring among married voters, men, and Catholics. Within these subgroups, however, Republican gains have occurred mainly or exclusively among self-identified conservatives. As a result, the relationship between ideology and party identification has increased dramatically. This has important implications for voting behavior. Increased consistency between ideology and party identification has contributed to higher levels of party loyalty in presidential and congressional elections.

Economic Conditions, Causal Attributions, and Political Evaluations in the 1984 Presidential Election

Using data from the 1984 American National Election Study, this paper examines the influence of personal finances on political evaluations. Evaluations of the presidential candidates were affected by perceived changes in personal economic well-being only among citizens who held the government or society responsible for these changes. Attributions of responsibility were, in turn, related to the direction of change in financial well-being and to political interest--those citizens whose economic well-being had declined, and those who followed the campaign closely were more likely to attribute responsibility to the government (or society) than those whose circumstances had improved, and those who paid less attention to the campaign.

An Improved Model for Predicting Presidential Election Outcomes

There is probably no subject which has been studied more thoroughly by political scientists than American presidential elections. A vast literature has developed examining the effects of attitudes toward the parties, candidates, and issues on voter decision-making in these quadrennial contests (for a comprehensive review of this literature see Asher, 1988). Despite the proliferation of literature on this topic, however, relatively little research has addressed what is perhaps the most basic question about presidential elections: who wins and who loses? A few scholars have developed models for predicting the national outcomes of presidential elections. Brody and Sigelman (1983) proposed a model based on the incumbent presidents approval rating in the final Gallup Poll before the election. This extremely simple model yielded an unadjusted R 2 of .71. Hibbs (1982) proposed a different bivariate model based entirely on the trend in real per capita disposable income since the last presidential election. This model yielded an unadjusted R 2 of .63. Thus, neither of these bivariate models proved to be highly accurate. Lewis-Beck and Rice (1984) have developed a forecasting model which combines economic conditions and presidential popularity, Their model, which uses the presidents approval rating in May and the change in real per capita GNP during the second quarter of the election year to predict the popular vote for president, yields an unadjusted R 2 of .82.

The Impact of a Presidential Debate on Voter Rationality

This study evaluates the impact of the first presidential debate of 1976 on the rationality of voting decisions. Using data from a panel of eligible voters in Williamsburg-James City County, Virginia, three models of attitude consistency are tested: rational voting, selective perception, and persuasion. Rational voting is defined as choosing a candidate on the basis of issue positions. The debate increased voter awareness of Fords and Carters positions on the issue of unemployment, one of the key issues in the debate. However, there is no evidence of changes in candidate preference based on this issue. There is strong evidence of persuasion: voters adopted the position taken by their preferred candidate.

Ideological Realignment and Active Partisans in the American Electorate

This article investigates the consequences of ideological realignment for the motivations and policy preferences of active partisans—Democratic and Republican identifiers who engage in electoral activities that go beyond the act of voting. We hypothesize that, consistent with the logic of persuasion and selective recruitment/derecruitment, the influence of ideology as a motivation for campaign participation varies over time and between parties depending on the salience of the ideological cues provided by a party’s candidates and office-holders. Evidence from the 1972 to 2000 American National Election Studies supports this hypothesis. As a result of an ideological realignment led by conservative Republican leaders such as Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich, by the mid-1990s, ideology had become a much more important motivation for participation among Republicans than among Democrats, and active Republicans were farther to the right of the electorate than active Democrats were to the left of the electorate on a wide range of policy issues.

Partisan Redistricting and the 1992 Congressional Elections

Research on congressional districting after the 1970 and 1980 censuses found a short-term partisan advantage when a party controlled all three branches of state government. Results from the 1992 election indicate that, on average, partisan control of state government did little or nothing to enhance partisan gains from redistricting. The requirement that some states clear their districting changes with the Justice Department did not account for this absence of effect.