Foreshadowed Abstention in Florida?

Herman Cain’s surprise victory in Florida’s straw poll over the weekend has turned many heads. The victory of this outsider has been seen by some as a vote of “no-confidence” for the current GOP frontrunners (Perry and Romney). This lack of confidence mentioned by the article can be dissected in more detail by using the theory of the Median Voter Theorem and voter abstention.

One of the key assumptions of the Median Voter Theorem is that there are no voter abstentions. This is obviously broken in almost every election. In evaluating how this might affect the predictions of the theorem, it has been noted that voters may abstain if alienated. This would occur if the difference between their optimal set of policies and the actual set of policies of their party is greater than some unknown reservation value. For example, someone who is on the extreme wing of their party may not vote in an election if their difference from their candidate is too great. One motivation for doing this would be to send a message that the candidate must move away from the median position in future elections.

This straw poll shows that many voters in Florida still have large differences between themselves and the candidates that have been leading nationally. If these differences remain large enough, they may lead Florida voters to abstain from voting out of alienation.

In spite of this, the article ends on a note that is more hopeful for the GOP. It quotes David Keene, the president of the NRA, saying that President Obama is “the greatest uniter in the history of American politics.” By this he means that he believes the GOP will unite around whatever candidate is eventually picked because President Obama is so much further to the left, something more in line with the Median Voter Theorem. It remains to be seen if voter alienation will play any role in the upcoming election or whether voters will vote for whoever is closest to them, regardless of how central they are. Either way, the story of voter abstention because of alienation is helpful in understanding the discontent referred to in the article.