Is It the Economy? Economic Voting in Polarized Politics

• In Event: New Developments in Economic Voting

Abstract

Elite polarization has become a central feature in American politics and many other democracies that experience the rise of radical political leaders and parties. The literature on economic voting shows that political context affects voters’ ability to attribute responsibility for economic conditions. Does polarizing politics influence economic voting? In this paper, I propose a theoretical framework and an empirical strategy to investigate the impact of elite polarization on economic voting in American Presidential elections. Based on micro-level foundations, I derive general predictions about flows of voters that we should observe in the electoral--across party lines and towards abstention--in response to polarization and use them to hypothesize how polarizing politics works as a moderator of economic voting at the aggregate level. Findings from seemingly unrelated models with election results at the county level show that, under polarizing politics, the electorate is less likely to sanction the incumbent party for unemployment. Even abstention--a third option always available for voters--becomes less attractive as polarization increases. Models with ANES data present similar findings: as the perceived gap between parties increases, partisans who negatively evaluate the economy become less likely to punish their preferred party. The ideological gap reduces the probability of voting across party lines due to a poor economy among Republicans. For Democrats and Independents, polarization decreases mainly the tendency to abstain when they negatively evaluate the economy. These findings show that polarizing politics clouds the responsibility for economic conditions, decreasing voters’ willingness to hold the incumbent party accountable.

Author

• Thiago M Q Moreira, Texas A&M University