ABSTRACT

Traditional studies of swing voters in American politics typically focus on general attributes of a monolithic group. More recent analyses of “partisan defection,” address the partisan direction of swing voting but often limit analysis to a single election or a single direction of defection. I seek to expand upon this research by examining multidirectional partisan defection across successive presidential elections. Using ANES and CCES 2012 and 2016 presidential election data, I test individual correlates of self-reported major party vote switching for presidential-candidates in both directions. Results suggest one the strongest correlates of defection has been underappreciated in recent defection studies: self-identified ideology. More conservative past Democratic voters and more liberal past Republican voters are more likely to defect than voters whose ideology is more consistent with their past voting patterns. The two groups of defectors are also vastly different from one another with Whites more likely to defect to Republicans and African Americans more likely to defect to Democrats. Less progressive racial attitudes and financial hardship are also both associated with increased odds of defecting from Democrats but decreased odds of defecting from Republicans. Finally, results show intra-defector group similarity across both elections, suggesting consistent partisan defection trends, irrespective of candidates. Overall, these results call for a reexamination of voter defection to consider distinct partisan directionality, secular trends in defection, and further exploration of the role of self-identified ideology.

摘要

对美国政治中摇摆选民的传统研究通常关注单一群体的一般属性。最近对“党派叛逃”的分析涉及摇摆投票的党派方向，但通常将分析限制于单一选举或单一叛逃方向。我试图通过考察历届总统选举中的多向党派叛逃情况来扩展这项研究。使用 ANES 和 CCES 2012 年和 2016 年总统选举数据，我测试了总统候选人自我报告的主要政党投票转换的个人相关性。结果表明，在最近的叛逃研究中，叛逃最强烈的相关因素之一被低估了：自我认同的意识形态。较保守的过去民主党选民和较自由派的过去共和党选民比意识形态与其过去投票模式更一致的选民更有可能叛逃。这两类叛逃者也有很大不同，白人更有可能叛逃到共和党，而非裔美国人更有可能叛逃到民主党。不太进步的种族态度和经济困难也与叛逃民主党的可能性增加有关，但与叛逃共和党的可能性降低有关。最后，结果显示两次选举中叛逃群体内部的相似性，表明无论候选人如何，党派叛逃趋势都是一致的。总体而言，这些结果要求重新审视选民的叛逃，以考虑不同的党派方向性、叛逃的长期趋势、