Abstract
Analyses of recent Presidential, Congressional, and Gubernatorial elections and elec torates have given rise to conclusions that traditional party loyalties are waning, while an incumbent, regardless of party affiliation, remains extremely difficult to unseat. How ever, analysis of "lower salience" New York City choices (such as for City Council, State Assembly, and State Senate) indicates that although incumbents run even stronger on this level, "electorate partisanship" has not been seriously eroded. The data consist of aggregate registration and voting information from a period (1968-1974) in which par tisanship was seen to be losing its impact as a voting cue in high salience races nation wide. The author finds that when one focuses on registration and straight-ticket voting at the bottom of the New York City ballot, one finds few "operational Independents." The specific findings are: (a) nearly 90% partisan registration, with no significant upsurge in Independent enlistments; (b) a sizable amount of partisan straight-ticket voting-in these lower salience contests; and (c) "switching" appears to be considerably more a high than a low salience election phenomenon.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.