Voting Behavior

The most interesting questions about an election are not concerned with who won but with why people voted the way that they did or what the implications of the results are. These questions are not always easily answered, and interpretations of an election often differ. Looking only at the campaign events and the behavior of the candidates will not tell us why people voted the way that they did. Even the public opinion poll data reported in the media may not provide a complete explanation. In order to truly understand the behavior of the electorate in a given election, we must blend knowledge of the features of the election with a more general theoretical understanding of electoral behavior. We therefore need to discuss basic concepts and ideas used in the study of voting behavior as a basis for analyzing the 2016 results.

Two major concerns characterize the study of electoral behavior. One concern is with explaining the election result by identifying the sources of individual voting behavior. With this approach, we attempt to understand the election outcome by understanding how and why the voters made up their minds. Another major concern in voting research emphasizes changes in voting patterns over time, usually with an attempt to determine what the election results tell us about the direction in which American politics is moving. In this case we focus on the dynamics of electoral behavior, especially in terms of present and future developments. These two concerns are complementary, not contradictory, but they do emphasize different sets of research questions. For our purposes, these two concerns provide a useful basis for discussing key aspects of voting behavior.

Sources of Individual Voting Behavior

On what basis do voters decide how they will cast their ballot? Several basic factors can be identified as reasons for choosing a candidate in an presidential election. A voter may choose a candidate on the basis of one or more of the following considerations:

• orientations on issues of public policy
• assessments of the performance of government
• evaluations of the character traits of the candidates

When voters are asked what they like or dislike about a specific candidate—i.e., what might make them vote for or against that candidate—most of their responses fall into one of those three categories.

These orientations and evaluations in turn are influenced by two more general attitudinal factors:

• party identification
• general ideological dispositions

Party identification and ideology are more general, long-run factors that influence voting behavior primarily by affecting the attitudes that are more immediate to the vote decision in a particular year.

The various factors that influence the vote decision vary in their stability over time. Evaluations of candidate qualities and government performance are distinctly short-term forces, capable of substantial shifts from one election to the next. Party identification and ideology are much more stable in the short term. Not many voters change their party identification or ideology from one election to the next, and the changes that do occur often are small ones. Issue orientations fall in between. While the specific issues crucial in presidential elections can change dramatically, as can how the voters evaluate the presidential candidates on the issues, many basic policy questions (e.g., defense spending, social welfare programs, abortion) stretch across several elections, with partisan differences remaining relatively constant.

The various attitudes and orientations that influence voting behavior in presidential elections are interrelated. Understanding the interrelationships among attitudes and orientations is important for a full understanding of voting behavior.

Electoral Dynamics

Election results change, often dramatically. A clear victory for one party may be followed by a defeat for that party in the following election. Electoral changes can be divided into two types: short-term and long-term. Short-term changes are the result of fluctuations in factors that are specific to an election, such as the characteristics of the candidates or the condition of the economy. These short-term factors may be moderately favorable to the Democrats in one election, strongly favorable to the Republicans in another, and evenly divided in a third.

Long-term shifts result from alterations in basic partisan loyalties and represent changes that last beyond a particular election. The most significant long-term change occurs when there is a critical realignment of the party system, which refers to a rapid, fundamental, and durable alteration in the pattern of party loyalties held by the electorate (Burnham 1970, 1-10; Sundquist 1983, 1-14). Critical realignments occur infrequently; the last major upheaval of the party system occurred in the 1930s, and before that in the 1890s and 1850s. Changes in the party system since the end of World War II have not been as rapid and dramatic as what occurred during these earlier critical realignments, but the American political party system has been significantly altered over the past several decades.

The New Deal realignment of the 1930s reshaped the American political party system. Some of the current differences between the parties can be traced back to this realignment. However, there have been important developments since the 1930s that have altered the nature of the party system. The more recent developments have not been as sweeping in their scope nor as abrupt in their effect as what occurred in the 1930s, but the cumulative impact of these developments has been substantial.

Summary

A number of attitudinal and social factors are related to individual voting behavior. Among attitudinal factors, assessments of the character traits of the candidates, evaluations of government performance, orientations on specific policy issues, party identification, and ideology are the primary determinants of candidate choice. For demographic or social factors, race, religion, socio-economic status, gender, marital status, and age appear to be the characteristics that have most closely related to voting over the past two decades. Examining how these factors are related to the vote in particular elections both allows us to explain individual election outcomes and to understand electoral dynamics.

For Further Reading

A good introductory discussions of elections and voting is:

• William H. Flanigan, Nancy H. Zingale, Elizabeth A. Theiss-Morse, and Michael W. Wagner. 2015. Political Behavior of the American Electorate, 13th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.

A somewhat more advanced overview of the factors that affect voting behavior is:

• Abramson, Paul R., John H. Aldrich, Brad T. Gomez, and David W. Rhode. 2016. Change and Continuity in the 2012 and 2014 Elections. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.

References