Levels of Issue Voting

Abstract

In the last five years studies of the American electorate have found some evidence that voters have adopted more of the attributes that mark the informed citizen. Increasing concern with issues and a greater correlation between issues and the vote have cheered observers who were always uneasy with what appeared to be a blind commitment to voting for the party. However, other recent studies have indicated that candidates also play a role in the level of issue voting which characterizes any election. These data support an early argument that candidates are a critical variable for the level of issue voting in any election; and that higher levels of issue voting since 1964 may be a reflection of different candidates rather than greater ideological concern among voters. This article examines the latter possibility. The article presents a typology of elections based on the nature of the candidate-pair; it documents the similarity of elections with like candidate-pairs but unlike electorates; it attempts a tentative assessment of the impact of candidate pairs on the individual voter level; and it applies the hypothesis about candidate-pairing effects to the 1976 election.