Not just who, but how: Further probing the connection between primary election dissatisfaction and general election voting behavior

IF 2.3 2区社会学 Q1 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Electoral Studies Pub Date : 2025-07-28 DOI:10.1016/j.electstud.2025.102969

Elizabeth N. Simas , Lucas Lothamer

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

How does divided primary support impact parties and their candidates come the general election? Existing works fail to offer a clear consensus, with some finding evidence of “sour grapes” and defection and others finding that voters ultimately come home to their party. We offer a more recent examination of how support for a losing primary candidate is related to general election voting behavior. In addition, we also hypothesize that dissatisfaction with aspects of how nominating contests are conducted will be related to greater probabilities of defection or abstention. Using original data from the 2020 Cooperative Election Study (CES), we find only mixed evidence that dissatisfaction with Joe Biden lead to a greater probability of defecting to Donald Trump in the 2020 general election. More consistently, we find that dissatisfaction with the process that led to Biden's nomination – especially dislike of the roles of Iowa and New Hampshire -- is associated with defection. These findings suggest that parties should think about both the people running and process by which they are nominated if hoping to maximize general election support among their members.

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不只是谁，而是如何：进一步探讨初选不满与大选投票行为之间的联系

分裂的初选支持率如何影响政党及其候选人进入大选？现有的研究未能提供一个明确的共识，一些人发现了“酸葡萄”和叛逃的证据，另一些人发现选民最终回到了他们的政党。我们提供了一个更近期的检查如何支持一个失败的初选候选人与大选投票行为有关。此外，我们还假设，对提名竞赛进行方式方面的不满将与更大的叛逃或弃权概率有关。利用2020年合作选举研究（CES）的原始数据，我们发现只有混合证据表明，对乔·拜登的不满导致在2020年大选中投奔唐纳德·特朗普的可能性更大。更一致的是，我们发现，对导致拜登获得提名的过程的不满——尤其是对爱荷华州和新罕布什尔州所扮演角色的不满——与叛逃有关。这些发现表明，如果政党希望最大限度地提高其成员在大选中的支持率，就应该考虑候选人和提名过程。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Electoral Studies POLITICAL SCIENCE-

CiteScore

3.40

自引率

13.00%

发文量

审稿时长

67 days

期刊介绍： Electoral Studies is an international journal covering all aspects of voting, the central act in the democratic process. Political scientists, economists, sociologists, game theorists, geographers, contemporary historians and lawyers have common, and overlapping, interests in what causes voters to act as they do, and the consequences. Electoral Studies provides a forum for these diverse approaches. It publishes fully refereed papers, both theoretical and empirical, on such topics as relationships between votes and seats, and between election outcomes and politicians reactions; historical, sociological, or geographical correlates of voting behaviour; rational choice analysis of political acts, and critiques of such analyses.