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There’s a partisan floor¹ that’s in the neighborhood of 25–30% where people will vote for their party no matter what. The 2004 Illinois Senate election was a go
by dhosek 16d ago
There’s a partisan floor¹ that’s in the neighborhood of 25–30% where people will vote for their party no matter what. The 2004 Illinois Senate election was a good test case where when the Republican nominee went down in self-inflicted flames and was hurriedly replaced with Alan Keyes, who had no in-state constituency and, being Black (which, no doubt was the cynical reason for his recruitment), eliminated the racist choice. He gained a mere 27% of the vote which is likely the floor for a major party candidate in a contested broad-population election (smaller-level partisan elections, whether for single congressional seats or in small states, generally have demographically skewed populations which can result in wider margins).
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1. Although as I think about it, this may only be valid on the right side of the spectrum given the data points.
- rrrrrrrrrrrryan 15d agoWe're obviously long past the days when people's politics could be mapped on a nice normal distribution, with some outliers at either end and a big group of moderates in the middle who vote differently depending on the election. Today the distribution is not only bimodal: there's almost no overlap at all. Your politics are part of your identity now. It's part of how you define who you are, and according to the research, over 95% of people are completely entrenched and will never vote for any candidate from the "other" party. (This the highest since right before the Civil War.) That said, while nobody's changing sides any time soon, people _do_ stay home on election day, and we're going to see that next election. The races for the next couple decades will be won by the candidates and the parties who can drill up enough enthusiasm from their base. Preach to the choir so the choir sings, etc.