Party Elites, Ideological Voters, and Divided Party Government

Frymer, Paul; Kim, Thomas P.; Bimes, Terri

doi:10.2307/440382

Cited by 19 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…13 While works like Jacobson (1990Jacobson ( , 1992, Fiorina (1992), and Alesina and Rosenthal (1995) deal with many of the same issues as we do, and they do contain a clear recognition that constituencies differ in their ideological composition as do many other studies (e.g., Brady, Brody, and Epstein 1989;Bullock and Brady 1983;Hurley and Wilson 1989;Shapiro et al 1990), none of these authors state clearly that ideological differences across constituencies is a driving force behind ticket-splitting. Frymer (1994) and Frymer, Kim and Bines (1997) do, however, offer intuitions that are very similar to those in this paper. 14 Unfortunately, the empirical test used in the first of these papers is not compelling, 15 and the second paper uses survey data that give rise to hypotheses slightly different from those given above.…”

supporting

confidence: 76%

“…The comparative midpoints model thus provides an explanation for the well-known fact that there has been a clear directional bias to the recent pattern of frequent divided government that does not rely on any supposed in-26 A focus on individual-level data (such as in Frymer, Kim, and Bines 1997;Alvarez and Schousen 1993, and numerous other authors) may lead to an inattention to district-specific effects. For example, Alvarez and Schousen (1993) test whether ideologically moderate voters are more likely to split their tickets (as would be predicted by the balancing model) and do not find empirical support for this expectation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…Because in recent decades there are far more conservative constituencies with Democratic incumbents than liberal constituencies with Republican incumbents, especially in the House, the comparative midpoints model leads us to expect that the usual pattern of divided government during this period should have involved Democrats retaining control of the House in a year when a Republican wins the presidency. The comparative midpoints model thus provides an explanation for the well-known fact that there has been a clear directional bias to the recent pattern of frequent divided government that does not rely on any supposed in-26 A focus on individual-level data (such as in Frymer, Kim, and Bines 1997;Alvarez and Schousen 1993, and numerous other authors) may lead to an inattention to district-specific effects. For example, Alvarez and Schousen (1993) test whether ideologically moderate voters are more likely to split their tickets (as would be predicted by the balancing model) and do not find empirical support for this expectation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

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A New Look at Split-Ticket Outcomes for House and President: The Comparative Midpoints Model

Grofman¹,

Koetzle²,

McDonald³

et al. 2000

The Journal of Politics

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We argue that conservative districts that go Democratic for the House should be likely to choose a Republican for president, while liberal districts represented by a Republican should be likely to opt for a Democrat for president. We test these and related predictions about split-ticket voting with election data from the eight presidential elections between 1964 and 1992. We show that ideological differences in the estimated location of the district's median voter explains a substantial component of the systematic variation in patterns of split outcomes in this period across districts, but that other factors (e.g., an especially popular incumbent or a particularly poor challenger, the magnitude of presidential election victory, region-specific realignment effects) also play a role.Why do voters split their tickets between a president of one party and a representative or senator of another party? Why do some districts register a majority of votes for one party's presidential candidate but simultaneously give their support to another party's candidate for House or Senate? Why has the degree of ticket-splitting and the number of constituencies with split outcomes generally been on the rise from the minuscule proportions they were in elections earlier in this century?The best-known line of argument seeking to answer these questions can be labeled the "candidate-centered politics" thesis. According to this thesis, declining voter party loyalties, the rise in the number of voters who call themselves independents, media-centered campaigns, the decline of party machines, and an

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supporting

confidence: 76%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

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A New Look at Split-Ticket Outcomes for House and President: The Comparative Midpoints Model

Grofman¹,

Koetzle²,

McDonald³

et al. 2000

The Journal of Politics

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“…The intuition behind the theory is fairly straightforward-some voters split their tickets simply because they prefer divided, but "balanced" government. In other words, a portion of voters tend to engage in intentionally, sophisticated voting behaviors (i.e., ticket splitting) to cause different partisan control of Congress and the presidency in order to ensure moderate policy (Alesina & Rosenthal, 1995; Carsey & Layman, 2001;Frymer, Kim, & Bimes, 1997;Lacy & Paolino, 1998;Lewis-Beck & Nadeau, 2004;Mebane, 2000;Smith, Brown, Bruce, & Overby, 1999). The balancing theory is appealing as it takes into account not only the policy differences between the two parties, but also the main feature of the US constitutionnamely, constant checks and balances due to the separation of powers purported by the nation's Founders.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Who Wants Checks and Balances? Endogeneity of the Balancing Perspective

Huang²,

Hsiao³

2015

Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research

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The premise of the intentional model of split-ticket voting is that some voters split their tickets simply because they prefer divided government and believe in constant "checks and balances." This article examines whether this premise stands firm in an emerging democracy like Taiwan. That is, by using survey data in Taiwan, we explore whether one's attitude toward divided or unified government is "real." We hypothesize that a citizen's attitude toward "checks and balances" is subject to change, and conditional on whether her preferred party is in power. Specifically, we speculate that a citizen would tend to hold the balancing perspective or favor divided government, if her preferred party is in opposition. However, if her preferred party becomes the ruling party, she would be more likely to oppose (hold) the balancing (non-balancing) perspective or favor unified government. We then utilize panel survey data embedded in Taiwan's Election and Democratization Studies (TEDS) to verify our hypothesis.Keywords: checks and balances; straight-and split-ticket voting; endogeneity 1 All correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Eric Chen-Hua Yu at Election Study Center & Department of Political Science, National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan or by email at ericyu@nccu.edu.tw. Research -ISSN 2288-6168 (Online) Vol. 2 No.3 May 2015: 196-227 http://dx.doi.org/10.15206/ajpor.2015 Asian Journal for Public Opinion 197The phenomenon of divided government has attracted considerable scholarly attention in the study of American politics over the past decades. One of the major controversies is its cause. While divided government is an aggregated result of certain voting patterns, scholars tend to develop micro-level theories to explain why voters caste their votes in those ways.In the context of American politics, a divided government is not unusual. Yet, unlike the periods of divided government in the late nineteenth century, during which divided government mainly occurred in off-year elections as the electorate changed the majority party in congressional elections, divided government in the post World War II period is driven by the rise of split-ticket voting in presidential elections-votes for one party for president and the other party for their members of Congress (Brady, 1993;Fiorina, 1992).As split-ticket voting appears to be a common practice for a portion of voters and can be regarded as the main cause of a divided government, then the question becomes why voters tend to do so.Empirical research purports two major models to explain split-ticket voting: the intentional and unintentional models. The intentional model of split-ticket voting mainly follows the logic of "balancing theory" argued by Fiorina (1992Fiorina ( , 1996. The intuition behind the theory is fairly straightforward-some voters split their tickets simply because they prefer divided, but "balanced" government. In other words, a portion of voters tend to engage in intentionally, sophisticated voting behaviors (i.e., ticke...

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“…For example, both Burden and Kimball (2002) and Grofman et al (2000) suggest that ticket splitting is driven partly by the ideological make-up of the districts and the positions taken by congressional incumbents. Grofman et al suggest that the ideological makeup of a district may lead candidates to offer a choice of policy positions that may be quite different than what is offered at the national level (see also Frymer 1994). Their socalled "comparative midpoints" (CM) model assumes that candidates will locate themselves on opposite sides of the median voter within a particular constituency and voters will choose the candidate that is closest to them.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Ideological Ambiguity and Split Ticket Voting

Karp

Garland²

2007

Political Research Quarterly

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Recent research on congressional elections suggests that voters are more likely to split their votes in ideologically extreme districts. The authors suggest that in this type of context, uncertainty about candidate position rather than clarity explains the occurrence of ticket splitting. Using data from a rolling cross-section campaign survey where two incumbents competed in an overwhelmingly conservative district, the authors find that a substantial proportion of voters are likely to have difficulty identifying which congressional candidate was more conservative. Moreover, media exposure contributed to ambiguity over candidate position, which increases the likelihood of ticket splitting.

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Party Elites, Ideological Voters, and Divided Party Government

Cited by 19 publications

References 9 publications

A New Look at Split-Ticket Outcomes for House and President: The Comparative Midpoints Model

A New Look at Split-Ticket Outcomes for House and President: The Comparative Midpoints Model

Who Wants Checks and Balances? Endogeneity of the Balancing Perspective

Ideological Ambiguity and Split Ticket Voting

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