In Johnson’s “Voting, Rational Abstention, and Rational Ignorance” we learned that primary elections have the potential to prevent a single mode electorate and contribute to the ambiguity of candidate’s platforms. Individuals who are active voters in primary elections tend to be more partisan in their beliefs, or in terms related to the median voter theorem, on the far right or far left of the spectrum. Because these individuals are more inclined to participate, the candidates in the general election will most likely vehemently oppose one another on close to every issue. This forces voters in the middle to either abstain from voting or choose a candidate that represents the extreme.
More often than not, in districts where one
party historically dominates, the general election is secondary to the battle
in the primary. For example, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (NY-14) win
in the 2018 democratic primary essentially decided the general election, and
her toughest battle was against the Democrat incumbent Joseph Crowley. When the
real competition is in the primary, candidates are more likely to shift closer
towards the ends of the electoral spectrum and therefore produce policies favored
by their voting base who adhere to extreme ends of the spectrum. This of course
only leads to further partisanship in congress with most candidates
representing extreme ends of conservatism and liberalism leaving little room to
compromise for the median, and moderate, American voter.
2 comments:
This is one of the concepts in Johnson’s paper that I found to be the most interesting. The Median Voter Theorem stipulates that, in order to win, candidates strive to secure the most votes by not deviating too far from the median voter’s policy preferences. If this is true, why does American politics today appear more polarized than ever? Indeed, our current political system doesn’t seem to cater at all to the median voter. This is because, like you said, individuals who vote in primary elections have a tendency to be more partisan in their beliefs than the average American of voting-age. As a result, politicians in primary elections cater more to the “median-voter” of their respective parties, rather than the median voter overall. Subsequently, candidates push closer to the opposite ends of the political spectrum in an effort to distinguish themselves from their opponent and represent the interests of their constituents, forcing voters in the middle to either abstain from voting or to choose a side. With the polarization of candidates taking place during the primaries, this ultimately feeds the polarization of American politics.
I believe this phenomena of polarization causing voters to either pick a side or abstain was especially seen in the 2016 election, and can explain the surprising result of that election. I remember polls predicting a win for Clinton at the time. On election day, the Times predicted Clinton had an 85% chance of winning. However, both of the candidates were surrounded by a lot of controversy, and it caused a record amount of voters, even partisan voters, to not "pick a side" by voting for a third-party candidate.
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