Please contact me at lee.hannah@psu.edu for original files.

1. Day 10 – Dynamics of Voting
July 11, 2013

2. Today’s Agenda
 Continue discussion on political behavior.
 2012 Exit Polls
 Discuss how the makeup of the electorate varies in
different elections and consider potential
consequences.
 Research example: Ballot Initiatives and Electoral Timing
 Examine other forms of responsiveness
 Sulkin and “issue uptake”

3. Demographics and Exit Polling
 CNN – Infographics for each questions
 http://www.cnn.com/election/2012/results/race/president
 New York Times – Can see historical trends and state-
level breakdown
 Presidential Election results
 http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/president/exit-polls
 House results
 http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/house/exit-
polls?gwh=C62EF260D73A926469AC9772A857BD60
 Senate results
 http://elections.nytimes.com/2012/results/senate/exit-
polls?gwh=2FA48428606705EADA7EE25CAFC4AFF7
 Fox News - Result for every question (you can see the
number of respondents here.)
 http://www.foxnews.com/politics/elections/2012-exit-poll

4. How Voters Decide
 Low-information rationality
 Party loyalties
 Explains 90% of vote choice among registered Democrats
and Republicans
 Independents
 True independents versus closet partisans
 Partisan resurgence
 Examples of strong versus weak party ties
 Split-ticket voting
 Driven largely by partisan shifts in the South (p.91)

5. Changing Voter Distributions by Election
 Figure 4-2 in
DOL
 Why do less
people vote
in midterms?
 Does the
electorate
look
different?
 Affluent
 More
Educated

6. Changing Makeup of Voters
Source:
McDonald
(2010) “Voter
Turnout in the
2010 Midterm
Election”, The
Forum 8(4)
Source:
Hannah (2013)
“Ballot
Initiatives and
Electoral
Timing”
Unpublished.
How might an older group of voters during Midterms
affect election results?

7. Surge and Decline Theory
 Excitement of a winning presidential campaign
attracts intermittent or peripheral voters. (DOL p.92)
 How does their participation affect other candidates?
 What happens in midterm election years?
 Core voters remain
 “Low stimulus”
 Challenges to surge and decline theory.
 Jacobson and Kernell (1983) – “strategic politicians”
recognize that midterm years are often seen as good
years for the out party.

8. Surge and Decline Theory
From Bafumi, Erikson, Wlezien
(2010) “Balancing, Generic Polls,
and Midterm Congressional
Elections” Journal of Politics 72(3)

9. Ballot Initiatives and Electoral Timing
 “Tell your friends: We lost because of timing, not
lack of public support.”
 Scott Morgan – CA Proposition 19 Advocate (Legalization of
Marijuana)
 Conventional wisdom states that more conservative
voters participate in midterm elections.
 This should have an even greater effect on direct
initiatives – where voters decide on specific policy
instead of candidates.
 What policies might be particularly affected by this?
Following slides are from Hannah, Lee. 2013 “Ballot Initiatives and Electoral
Timing”, Unpublished. Parts of paper presented at 2011 and 2012 State Politics and

10. Morality Policy and Direct Democracy
Abortio
n, 10%
Civil
Rights,
4%
Crime
Policy, 8
%
Drugs, 5
%
English
Languag
e, 4%
Gaming,
34%
Guns, 2
%
Gay
Rights,
10%
Assisted
Suicide;
2%
Other, 2
1%
Morality Policy by Category (N=254)

11. Research Question
 Does the timing of an election systematically affect
the results of ballot initiative campaigns?
 Do the demographic differences in the electorate
between midterm and presidential elections affect
results?
 Why yes? Why no?
 Do certain candidates provide favorable conditions, or
surges, for initiative campaigns?
 Do popular liberal candidates affect the chances of a liberal
outcome on an initiative?
 Do popular conservative candidates affect the chances of a
conservative outcome on an initiative.
 In short, do popular presidential candidates provide a coat-tail
for the initiative campaign?

12. Defining Surge Elections
Type of Election Election
Year
Margin of Victory Notes
Republican Surge
Election
1980 9.7 – Reagan (50.7); Carter (41.0)
1984 18.2 – Reagan (58.8); Mondale
(40.6)
1988 8.5 – Bush (53.4); Dukakis (45.6)
Democratic Surge
Election
1996 8.5 – Clinton (49.2); Dole (40.7)
2008 7.2 – Obama (52.9); McCain (45.7)
Non-Surge Election
1968-1976 --- *Candidates do not take unique stances on
morality policy.
1992 5.6 – Clinton (43.0); Bush (37.4) *Candidacy of Ross Perot complicates
Democratic surge arguments.
2000 -.6 – Bush (47.9-); Gore (48.5) *This margin is too close to be considered a
surge election.
2004 2.4 – Bush (50.7); Kerry (48.3) *This margin is too close to be considered a
surge election.

13. Model & Analysis
 Dependent Variable - % Conservative Vote on an
Initiatives
 Example:
Initiative Category Conservative
?
%
Yes
D.V.: Conservative
Vote
MI – Proposal 08-02 (2008) – Removes some
restrictions from embryonic stem cell research
Morality No (0) 52.6 100-52.6 = 47.4
AZ – Prop 202 (1998) – Allow federal office
candidates to declare position on abolition of
income tax and IRS, and have that appear on
ballot.
Tax Yes (1) 45 45

14. Model – Logistic Regression
Covariate
Expected
Direction
Education -
Fundamentalist +
Catholic +
Black +/-
Hispanic +/-
Ideology -
Midterm Election +
Special Election +
Gubernatorial Election -
Democratic Surge Election -
Republican Surge Election +
StateDemographic
Factors
ElectoralContext
Factors
Dependent Variable: Conservative Outcome (1)
Three Models:
1- Full Model (254)
2- Model Excluding
Gaming (169)
3 - Model only Gaming
(85)

15. Liberal Effects Conservative Effects
-1.05
-1.47
-2.22
1.57
-0.59

16. Results
 State-level demographics have little effect on the odds of a
conservative outcome
 Timing matters (Model 2):
 Odds of a conservative outcome is 1 to 4 in Democratic surge
elections.
 Nearly 5 to 1 in Republican surge elections.
 Interestingly, odds of a conservative outcome in gaming policy
decreases to nearly 1 to 10 in Republican surge elections.
 Results are robust for:
 Region
 Political culture (Elazar 1972).
 Fixed-effects model controlling for states.
 OLS Models.
 Close Elections.

17. Conclusions
 It is unlikely that the initiative process could be manipulated in
regards to timing.
 Conservative outcomes are no more likely in midterm elections
and might even be less likely.
 Results possibly due some combination of:
 Increased initiative awareness in midterms (Smith 2001)
 The ability of morality policy initiatives to increase turnout and interest
(Nicholson 2003)
 The increased mobilization potential of initiative campaigns during
midterms (Donovan et al. 2009).
 Results suggest that initiative campaigns benefit from the coattails
of popular presidential candidates.

18. Discussion
 If we are trying to determine whether a legislator is
responsive to their constituents or not, what
evidence might we use to build a case?

19. Legislators as Representatives
 Mayhew (1974) identifies three general categories of
activities that legislators use to express their
interests and promote reelection
 Advertising
 Credit-claiming
 Position-taking
 Which aspect is Sulkin investigating?

20.  “In short, elections can promote responsiveness not
just by serving as a mechanism through which
constituents can replace poorly performing
legislators, but also by providing an incentive for all
legislators to adapt their behavior in office to avoid a
challenge.” Sulkin (2005, p.25)