The Electoral Challenge of Balancing Primary and General Electorates

• In Event: Voting in Primaries

Abstract

US Legislators face a two-stage process with a primary election and a general election, incentivizing them to appeal to both their base – the primary electorate – and their broader constituency – the general electorate. Do legislators have an incentive to be more attentive to the preferences of their primary voters, despite being a small and unrepresentative section of the public? We conduct survey experiments to calculate the effect of taking positions that are aligned with a voter’s preferences. We estimate the effect of alignment in both primary and general elections and test whether the effect is larger in the primary election. In other words, we test whether legislators face a primary premium for alignment with voter preferences. We also assess the mechanisms that drive differences between the responses of the primary and general electorates - whether differences are driven by changes in voter behavior across primary and general elections or by differences in the composition of the electorate in the two types of elections. The results raise important questions about equity and whose voices are heard in contemporary American politics. We consider an overlooked way that primaries can impact polarization and representation: individual voters being more responsive to the roll call voting record of incumbents in primaries than in general elections.

Authors

• Sarah Anderson, University of California, Santa Barbara

• Daniel M. Butler, WUSTL

• Laurel Harbridge-Yong, Northwestern University