The unswayed voter: How a polarized electorate responds to economic growth

Abstract

It is well known that higher economic growth benefits incumbents in elections. However, in the last thirty years, US politics has been marked by substantial increases in political polarization and a decline in the number of swing voters. Accordingly, we would expect that the effect of economic growth on incumbent vote share has declined. Indeed, using a Bartik-type instrument, I present new evidence that state economic growth has a positive effect on incumbent vote share, and that this effect is smaller under conditions of polarization. Using separate state-level and individual-level data sets, I find that the effect of state economic growth on incumbent vote share is smaller when state-level polarization, or individual partisanship, is stronger. Using a swing voting propensity score, I show that swing voting propensity is strongly associated with economic voting.