Mass Origins of Party Position Taking

• In Event: Subnational Political Parties

Brief Overview

Do parties adopt platforms aimed at courting the median voter, or do platforms simply reflect the preferences of existing party members? We answer this using a novel dataset of state party platforms from 1960-2018 and new estimates of public opinion.

Authors

• Michael Auslen, University of Texas at Austin

• Gerald H. Gamm, University of Rochester

• Justin H. Phillips, Columbia University