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Split-Ticket Voters, Divided Government, and Fiorina's Policy-Balancing Model Author(s): Richard Born Source: Legislative Studies Quarterly,

Vol. 19, No. 1 (Feb., 1994), pp. 95-115 Published by: Comparative Legislative Research Center Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/439802 . Accessed: 04/01/2011 02:37
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RICHARD BORN
VassarCollege

Split-Ticket
Divided Fiorina's

Voters, Government,

and

Model Policy-Balancing

To account for the increase in divided government in the United States, Fiorina has advanced a purposivetheory of split-ticketvoting that emphasizesvoters' desire to balancethe relativepolicy extremismof the Democraticand Republicanparties. This study uncoverslittle empiricalevidence to substantiatethe policy-balancing model. Respondents'issue-scaleplacementsof the presidentand federal government challengethe premisethat nationalpolicy is perceivedas a weightedaverageof the individual positions stakedout by the executive and congressionalbranches.More imporelections from tantly, conditional logit analysis in three of the five presidential-year 1972 to 1988 providesno supportfor Fiorina'scentraltenet that voterswill endorsethe presidential-House pair for which the averagedpartisanposition is closest to their own ideologicalpreference.Finally,there is only scatteredsupportfor the propositionsthat are developed as logical extensions of this theory.

Noting the rising tide of split-ticket voting for federal offices in the 1950s and 1960s, political observerssometimes posited that the electorate was unable to discern meaningfuldifferences between parties (Broder 1972, 13; Phillips 1975, 134-35). In the 1956 election, for example, Broder sees this lack of interpartydifferences-as well as Eisenhower's vast personal popularity, which transcended partisan loyalties-as explainingthe failureof the victorious presidentialparty (for the first time in 108 years) to captureeither congressionalchamber (1972, 12-13). Ironically, a prominent new theory has been advanced by MorrisFiorina, contending that the even higherlevels of split-ticketballoting in more recent elections result from the parties' increased ideological estrangementfrom one another and from the electorate (1988, 442-53; 1989, 24-28; 1992, 73-82). Other contemporary scholars, while unwilling to rule out competing theories, have used arguments similar to Fiorina's (Ladd 1985, 23-24). In fact, Erikson (1988, 1027) has suggestedthat votes against the president's party in off-year House elections may be a kind of lagged ticketsplitting behavior designed to moderate White House initiatives. LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, XIX, 1, February1994 95

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Richard Born

Fiorina'spolicy-balancingmodel has at its heart the hypothesis that voters view policy as a simple weighted mean of the stances taken by the party of the president and the congressional majority party.The weightingfactorfor the president'sposition (q) is presumed to exceed that for Congress (1 - q) because executive policy is perceived as preeminent. Graphically,then, the four partisan combinations of governance (where the first party in each pair controls the presidencyand the second controls the Congress)may be plotted on a simple left-rightscale (1988, 443; 1989, 25; 1992, 76):
DD DR RD RR

I
M1

I
M

I
M2

(DR is closer to DD than to RR, and RD nearer to RR than to DD, because of the q > .5 assumption). Accordingto the model, citizens will vote for the pair of candidates whose parties' average,weighted position is closest to their own position; thus, those between the DD-DR midpoint M, and the overall midpoint M will cast a Democratic-Republican ballot, those between M and the RD-RR midpoint M2 will vote Republican-Democratic, and voters more extremethan M or M2 will vote straight-party Democraticor Republican, respectively. Jacobson (1989, 144; 1990a, 106), in developing a ticketsplitting theory based on voters' self-contradictorypolicy goals, has observedthat surveydata supportingFiorina'smodel are ratherslight and that the model demands an unrealisticallyhigh degreeof calculation on the voter's part. Alongside these criticisms, another question may be posed: why, if citizens increasinglydesire a Congress of the opposing partyto balancethe relativeextremismof presidentialinitiatives, do they split their votes more often in Senate-Houseballotingas well? Such divided-party voting in presidential-yearelections, like ticket splitting in presidential-Houseelections, has virtually doubled in frequency from 1952-68 to 1972-88 (Stanley and Niemi 1990, 132). Criticisms like these, however,take account of two tests performed by Fiorina that appear to substantiate the policy-balancing model. The hypothesesthat Fiorinaconstructsas logical outgrowthsof his model need to be assessed as well. Attention will turn to these matters in this paper.

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97

Fiorina initially ascertains whether empirical support exists for his basic postulatethat policy may be conceptualizedas a weighted averageof the positions attributedto the presidentialand congressional majority parties. If this postulate were true, he properly reasons, estimates of the federalgovernment'slocation on various issue scales should less powerfullyrelate to estimates of the president's position when there is split-party, ratherthan one-party,controlof government. This expectation is met, in fact, but only weakly:on three of the four issue scales presentedby the CPS/ANESto respondentsin both 1980 and 1984, Fiorina finds the correlationof presidentialplacementwith government placement to be largerin 1980, a year of united Democratic control (1988, 449). In view of this less than conclusive outcome, extending the test to the 1988 presidential election seems an advisable next step. These resultsare included in Table 1. Yearsbefore 1980 cannot be examined, because the survey included no question dealing with government issue placement. All 1988 correlationsturn out to be at least somewhat strongerthan those in the 1980 election, contraryto what was anticipated. The midterm correlationsdo seem to offer some support for Fiorina's theory, in that all those computed in 1982, 1986, and 1990-years of divided government-are lower than the 1980 correlations for the same issue scale. With only one exception, however, the midterm r values are also weaker than the comparablevalues in either 1984 or 1988, probablyindicating that it is more difficult to assess both governmentand presidentialpositions in years without a presidential race to showcase national issues. It is thus necessary to single out presidential-yearelections for study, and the 1988 results challenge Fiorina's basic postulate. Fiorina'smore elaboratesecond test is more centralto his thebecause it directly examines whether voters indeed endorse the ory, pair of candidates for president and representative whose parties' averageweightedposition appearsclosest to their own ideologicalpreference (1988, 450-52). Employing 1984 data, Fiorina first estimates a binomial logit equation with presidentialchoice as the dependent variable (1 if Republican, 0 if Democratic). Three right-handside variables indicate evaluationsof PresidentReagan'sjob performance(each, in turn, taking the value of 1 for those approvingstrongly,approving not strongly,and disapprovingnot strongly).Two variablestap party affiliation (the first coded 1 for Republicans,the second coded 1 for independents). A final variable gauges the respondent's relative distance from the two parties (measured as the absolute difference

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Richard Born
TABLE 1 Correlations between Respondents' Placements of the Federal Government and the President on Issue Scales
(numbersof respondentsin parentheses)

Issue Area Defense Spending GovernmentAid to Minorities

1980 .594 (1124) .508 (1002)

1982 .410 (997) .386 (980) .396 (1045) .482 (976)

1984 .621 (1791) .445 (1738) .469 (1714) .457 (1630)

1986 .404 (1747)

1988 .608 (1572) .606 (755) .589 (1436)

1990 .509 (1489) .400 (1340)

Government-Guaranteed .562 Job and Good Standard (944) of Living Women'sRole/Social and Economic Status .486 (992)

Note:Data are from the CPS/ANESsurvey.Correlationsare calculatedfor all respondents ratherthanfor votersalone.The aid to minoritiesquestionsin 1988wereadministered to FormB respondentsonly. In 1980 and 1982, the women'sissue was supportfor an equal role; in 1984, it was governmentefforts to improve women's social and economic status.In some yearsno questionswereaskedrelatedto a particular issue area.

between self-placement on a 7-point liberal-conservative scale and the position the voter assigned to the Democratic party, subtracted from the absolute difference between self-placement and the Republican party's position. Likewise, a parallel equation for House voting is estimated, with the same variables as above, as well as a variable designating the incumbency status of the contest in the respondent's district (coded 1 for respondents in districts represented by a Republican incumbent, 0 for those in open-seat districts, and -1 for those with a Democratic incumbent). To derive a summary measure of how well the separate estimations forecast presidential-House ballot combinations, Fiorina identifies respondents whose true choice for each office is correctly determined by each equation. Among those voting for both a presidential and a House candidate, the percentage who twice are accurately forecast can then be computed. For comparison, Fiorina also computes the overall predictive power of a single-equation model incorporating his assumption about the public's simultaneous resolution of presidential and House choices. McFadden's conditional logit technique is applied here, wherein each possible voting pair is postulated to be a function of its utility to the respondent with regard to all independent variables used in the two binomial logit equations above. This model correctly

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projectsthe decisions of only slightly fewerrespondents(74.2%)than do the separate equations in tandem (74.4%). Considering what he deems the ratherrestrictivepolicy-balancinghypothesis that gave rise to the utility function used in the joint decision model, Fiorina views his findings as "atthe least highlysuggestive"of the hypothesis'svalidity (1988, 451). A somewhat questionable facet of this analysis is that it includes respondents in districts lacking two-party House competition. Such people are unable to balance their presidentialchoice with support for a House candidate of the opposing party if that party is absent a candidate. But since only 7.2%of the congressionalelectorate analyzed (or 7.1%of those voting for both offices) come from unopposed districts, the problem is unlikely to be consequential. Of greater import is an inadvertent error Fiorina makes in operationalizingthe key ideological distance utility function, one that jeopardizes the analysis as a test of the policy-balancinghypothesis. For each partisancomposite of presidentialand House choice, Fiorina gauges the ideological utility to the respondent as follows.
PresidentialChoice Republican Republican Democratic Democratic House Choice Republican Democratic Republican Democratic IdeologicalDistance Utility Function q q q q X- R X-R X- D X - D + + + + (1 ( (1 (1 q) Ix - R q)-D q)X - R q)X - D

(As before, q is the president'sweightin determiningpolicy; D, X, and R are the ideological scale placements for the Democratic party,the respondent, and the Republicanparty.)Lowerutility function values connote more preferableballot options. The overall coefficient of this function (p) and the magnitudeof q are computed indirectly.Two separate ideological distance variablesare inserted into the data matrix, each corresponding one of the absolute value terms above. Since the to conditional logit parameterestimated for the first absolute value term (a) must thus equal pq, while the parameterfor the second (y) will be P(l - q), simple manipulationof the identities finally yields the values of p and q. As an example, consider someone who places the Democrats, himself, and the Republicans,respectively,at 2, 4, and 6 on the ideological scale. For any value of q, the ideological utility to this person of each of the four partisan combinations will be identical: q(2) + [1 - q(2)] = 2. This contravenes the logic of the policy-balancing model, since anybody equidistant from the Democratic and Republi-

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Richard Born

can positions must find both split-partyoptions to be precisely at his ideal point, equally preferableto either straight-ticketpair. The proper utility specification is in the table below.
PresidentialChoice Republican Republican Democratic Democratic House Choice Republican Democratic Republican Democratic IdeologicalDistance Utility Function X X X X (qR (qR (qD (qD + + + + (1 (1 (1 (1 q)R) q)D) q)R) q)D)

In other words, ratherthan being a weightedaverageof a respondent's distance from the presidentialand House partypositions, the function should be the respondent'sdistance fromthe weightedaverageof these positions. For the situation where q = .5 and the voter, as before, is equidistantfrom Democratic and Republicanlocations of 2 and 6, the split-partyutilities will thus be 0, less than the value of 2 assigned to each straight-party choice. Any other q value here, except in the trivial case where it is 0 or 1, will still make both split-partyoptions more attractivethan the others;the same, as Fiorina intends, must hold true as long as the respondent is anywhere between the two parties'
positions.2

It appearsto be impossible to estimate ,3and q for this valid function delineation in any way that is analogous to the utility approach taken by Fiorina. No amount of manipulation will permit the term appearingin either split-ticketline to be recast as a simple sum of absolute values, as before. Nor does any other solution to the estimation problem seem feasible. Still, it is possible to experiment with various predefinedvalues of q in orderto develop a sense of how well a model properlyembodying policy-balancingassumptions forecasts voters'behavior.Data for 1984 are once again utilized, this time deleting respondents in unopposed House districts. The resultsof this exercise are presentedin Table 2. (Only the binomial equation parametersappear; conditional logit parameters obtainingat specific values of q are availableon request.)The q values cover a broad range (.50-.85), wherein the true weight accorded the president as controller of policy almost certainly lies. Calculationsat .05 intervalsof q are reported;those carriedout within these intervals never produceda forecastthat was worse than the very worstachieved at a .05 cutting point or better than the very best. The rangeof predictive accuracyis very narrow(between73.9 and 74.1%),and the values are very close to the 74.4%that Fiorina reachedwith the independent binomial equations for presidentialand House voting. Thus, in redo-

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TABLE2 Replication of Fiorina's Voting Equations for 1984, with Respondents in Uncontested House Districts Removed and the Correct Utility Function for Ideological Distance Employed
(standarderrorsin parentheses)
Binomial Logit Analysis Variables Constant Evaluationof President's Job Performance ApproveStrongly ApproveNot Strongly DisapproveNot Strongly PartyIdentification Republican Independent IdeologicalDistance Incumbentin House Contest N CorrectlyPredicted Percentage by Each EquationSeparately by the Two Equationsin Tandem q Computedwith Fiorina's Specificationof Utility Function CorrectlyPredictedwith Percentage Respecificationof Utility Function q = .50 q = .55 q =.60 q =.65 q = .70 q =.75 q = .80 q = .85 Range of PredictiveAccuracy from q = .50 to q = .85 N 1024 90.9 74.4 ConditionalLogit Analysis .738 74.1 74.0 74.0 74.0 74.0 73.9 74.1 74.0 73.9-74.1 800 Presidential Voting Equation -3.439*** (.388) 5.003*** (.458) 3.281"*' (.391) .437 (.466) 2.377*** (.364) 1.508*** (.259) -. 188*** (.039) House Voting Equation -2.314*** (.348) 2.804*** (.399) 2.354**' (.382) 1.203* (.415) 1.406*** (.285) .645** (.252) -.075* (.034) 1.387*** (.129) 821 80.5

*p .05 (one-tailedtest). p < .01 (one-tailedtest). **p < .001 (one-tailed test).

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Richard Born

ing Fiorina's original analysis with the properly specified ideological distance utility function, I found no basis for rejecting his hypothesis of simultaneity in the electoral choice process. What would result, though, if the same procedure were applied to the remaining elections in which the CPS/ANES asked respondents ideological placement questions concerning themselves and the parties (i.e., the 1972, 1976, 1980, and 1988 elections)? Two minor modifications are required to arrive at an answer. First, Fiorina in 1984 relied upon the branching format version of the liberalism/ conservatism scales, whereby voters who first select liberal or conservative to describe their ideology are then asked whether the relevant ideology is strong or not strong. Those who answer moderate or are unable to render a placement are prompted to say whether they see themselves or the parties as at least leaning toward liberal or conservative. Presidential-year election scales based on this particular branching format, however, exist only in 1984; thus, analysis in other years must use the standard one-step items soliciting placements along each 7-point scale. (To make comparison possible, the 1984 analysis will now rely on the standard 7-point scale as well.) Responses for all years must also be modified to conform to the simple approve/disapprove version of presidential job evaluation used in 1972 and 1976. Respondents had no opportunity to elaborate on the strength of their sentiment until subsequent years.3 The forecasting power of the relevant binomial and conditional logit equations is exhibited in Table 3.4 The analysis hardly changes our earlier results for 1984. The predictive accuracies across differing q values produced by conditional logit (73.7-74.2%) vary little, as before, and fall close to what would be divined by the baseline binomial equations (74.3%). Support for Fiorina's hypothesis is also provided by the analogous 1976 results; here, the results of the conditional logit analysis (67.9-68.3%) actually surpass that for the binomial logit analysis (67.4%). The results for the 1972, 1980, and 1988 elections, however, do not square with such a pattern. Even the best prediction within the broader span of values obtaining in each year (68.2-70.3%, 65.3-66.3%, and 72.0-73.0%, respectively) is appreciably worse than the corresponding baseline percentage (71.4%, 68.9%, and 74.7%, respectively).5 To put these differences in perspective, consider the predictive accuracies that would result were no ideological measure whatsoever included in the equations: 68% in 1972, 65% in 1980, and 72.8% in 1988. Thus, the major substantive step of entering ideology into the conditional logit equations produces only limited gains in forecasting voting behavior; in contrast, abandoning the con-

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ditional logit formulationof voting in favor of simpler binomial logit estimation improves predictive accuracy to a striking degree, especially in 1980 and 1988. In summary,then, we must conclude that the main test for verifyingthe policy-balancingmodel fails in three of the five elections studied. Appraisingthe PropositionsGeneratedby Fiorina's Theory Fiorina has explored some logical outgrowths of his model. The five discrete propositions that emerge, however, have not been subjected to more than passing attempts at confirmation. The first examined in detail here-and probably the most fundamental-is that voters perceivingtheir own ideology to fall between the two parties' should be more prone to split-ticket voting than should others (1989, 25). This proposition, of course, stems from the assumption that voters choose a given ballot combination as a kind of averageof the ideologicallocations of the partiesin a pair of contests for national office (see spatial diagramon p. 96). Votersbetweenthe DD-DR midpoint M, and the RD-RR midpoint M2are predictedto split their ballots because they are nearer to the relevant divided government position than to that of unified government;similar reasoningargues ticket. that people more extremethan DD or RR vote a straight-party But what of voters between DD and Ml or between RR and M2?While more moderate than either party,they still should vote a straightticket because they are closer to one of the united party positions than to a divided governmentposition. In fact, very few votersof this sort are likely to exist as long as the presidentialweightingfactorq is > .5 and < 1.0. Consider interpartyrespondents perceiving four points of separation between Democrats and Republicans on the 7-point scale (e.g., those with a self-placementof 3, 4, or 5 who see the parties at 2 and 6). Because of the .5 < q < 1.0 assumption, the relevant divided governmentposition DR or RD for the 3's or 5's must be less than one scale point away from them, while DDor RR precisely is one unit beyond. For those who place themselves at 4 on the scale, divided governmentwill be less than two units distant, while unified governmentwill be two full units removed.Analogously,all interparty voters seeing the parties separated by two or three points must be closer to the appropriatedivided governmentposition.6Finally,when the parties are five or six units apart, only those with a position one ticket. point more centristthan that of a partywill vote a straight-party In the former case (e.g., respondentswho place themselves at 3 or 6 and place the partiesat 2 and 7), straight-party voting is expected only

TABLE 3 Binomial Logit Analysis of Presidential and House Voting,


(standarderrorsin parentheses)

1972 Voting Equations 1976 Voting Equations 1980 Voting Equations 1984

Variables Constant Evaluationof President's Job Performance ApproveStrongly ApproveNot Strongly DisapproveNot Strongly PartyIdentification Same as that of President Independent IdeologicalDistance Incumbentin House Contest

President -2.760*** (.466)

House -1.916"** (.355)

President -3.220*** (.309)

House -2.195*** (.272)

President -3.662*** (.472)

House -1.445*** (.276)

Pres

-3.01 (.3

3.722***

1.104***

3.096***

1.701***

3.580***

.151

5.0

(.461)

(.340)

(.287)

(.277)

(.686) 2.783*** (.365) 1.052*** (.364)

(.488) .022 (.319) .210 (.292)

(.5 3.0 (.3 .2 (.4

3.641** (.870) .865* (.372)


-.704***

2.162*** 2.162*** 2.505*** 2.837*** 2.063*** (.370) (.305) (.318) (.463) (.356) 1.144*** 1.336*** 1.159*** 1.592*** 1.066** (.326) (.266) (.255) (.461) (.292)
-.199** -.388*** -.091 -.466*** -.220"*

2.0 (.3 1.3 (.2

-.35

(.118) N 438 Percentage CorrectlyPredicted 90.4 by Each EquationSeparately in by the TwoEquations Tandem *p -< .05 (one-tailed test).

(.077)

(.065)

(0.058)

(.083)

(.061)

(.0

.775*** (.154) 758 390

1.208*** (.138) 629 529

1.194*** (.136) 478 981

77.7
71.4

85.0

78.7
67.4

88.5

76.8
68.9

91.1

*p < .01 (one-tailedtest). < ***p .001 (one-tailedtest).

TABLE3 (continued) Conditional Logit Analysis of Presidential and House Votin


Specificationof Model q Computedwith Fiorina's Specificationof Utility Function PercentageCorrectlyPredictedwith Respecificationof Utility Function q = .50 q = .55 q = .60 q = .65 q= .70 q = .75 q = .80 q = .85 Range of PredictiveAccuracy from q = .50 to q = .85 N 1972 .780 68.5 68.5 68.5 68.2 69.3 69.8 70.1 70.3 68.2-70.3 381 1976 .841 67.9 67.9 68.0 68.3 68.0 68.0 68.2 68.2 67.9-68.3 616 1980 .674 66.0 66.3 65.8 65.5 65.3 65.8 65.8 65.8 65.3-66.3 409

Note:The analysesin Table3 use data only for respondents votingin the presidentialand House electio tion. Ideologicaldistancevariableswereconstructedfrom standard7-pointliberal/conservative scales refersto a simple dichotomousitem used in those years,differentiating only betweenthose who said formanceand those who said they disapproved.In 1988,the best prediction(73.0%)in the conditiona of.51-.54 and .73-.74.

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if q < .6. In the latter situation, limited to respondents who place themselves at 2 or 6 and place the parties at 1 and 7, a straight-party choice will occur only if q < .67. A person's q value, of course, is unknowable.However,if one considersall voterswho meet the two criteria of perceiving the Democrats and Republicans as at least five units apart and seeing themselves as one unit more moderate than a party, the maximum percentagewho could vote for unified government according to Fiorina's model averagesonly 6.0% from 1972 to 1988 and never exceeds the 1984 figure of 8.5%. Thus, this category of voters should pose no problem for the test about to be performed.The decision whetherto cast a divided ballot is set forth as the dependent variable (1 represents a split-ticket vote) in a binomial logit analysis with the following right-handside variables:
1 if voter's ideology lies between those of the two parties, 0 otherwise; AGE = voter's age in years; GOVTPOWER = 2 if voter believes government is getting too powerful; 1 if "other,""depends,"or "doesn't know";0 if government is not seen as getting too powerful; PUBAFFAIRS = 4 if voter follows governmentand public affairs most of the time, 3 if some of the time, 2 if doesn't know, 1 if only now and then, 0 if follows hardly at all; CAREPRES = 2 if voter cares not very much about which party wins presidency, 1 if doesn't know, 0 if cares a good deal; TRUST = voter's mean score across items comprising trust in governmentscale; each item calibrated so that 2 is the least trustingresponse and 0 the most trusting; EXTEFFICACY = voter's mean score across items comprising external efficacy scale; each item calibratedso that 2 is the least efficacious responseand 0 the most efficacious;7 OPPINC = 1 if member seeking reelection in voter's district is from partyopposite that of voter'spresidential choice, 0 otherwise; NOINC = 1 if member does not seek reelection in voter's district, 0 otherwise.
INTERPARTY =

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Age is used because younger voters have had less chance to "act out" any partisanattachments in the form of straight-ticketvoting (Parker 1988, 7, 9-10). Respondent feeling about government power and about the presidentialelection's importance, as well as scores on the trust and external efficacy scales, are entered to tap alienation toward the political system. Fiorina, relyingupon tabularanalysis,has found a propensity for the more alienated to divide their ballots more in 1980 (1989, 32-34). On the other hand, includinginterestin political affairs reflects Fiorina's concomitant observation that ticket splitting is somewhat more likely among those with greaterpolitical awareness.8 The final two variablescontrol for incumbencyby allowing, in effect, for the influence of the other independent variables to be registered within each groupof districtsmarkedby a distinct incumbencystatus. Table 4 shows that respondents'own ideology relativeto their of where the partiesstand affects ticket splitting in the hypothimages esized direction in four out of the five elections. Only in 1988, however, is the relationshipsignificant.9Most of the other variableshave weak or inconsistent effects. Plainly, many of the causes of dividedparty voting remain to be discovered.10 The second proposition that grows out of Fiorina's model is based on the assumption that voters see the president as influencing policy more than Congressdoes. Split-ticketvoters, as a result, should choose a presidentialcandidatewhose party'sposition is closer to their own position than is the party position of the House candidate they
choose (1988, 445). For the same reason, the dominant split-ticket pat-

tern should involve a presidentialvote for the party that is nearerto respondents in the aggregate(1989, 26; 1992, 78-79). Of course, the resultsof the binomial logit analysis presentedin Tables 2 and 3 indirectly suggest that both of these expectations will be upheld; in that analysis,relativeideologicaldistance from the parties-at least for the and split-ticketvoters analyzedtogetherthere-proved straight-ticket to be a strongerdeterminantof presidentialthan of House voting. To test these new expectations explicitly, a logit analysis was performed on split-ticket voters only, with the pattern of divided voting as the dependent variable (1 for Democratic-Republican,0 for RepublicanDemocratic)and respondentdistance from the Republicanpartyrelative to distance from the Democrats as the key independent variable (this measure has the same form as the ideological distance measure used in Tables2 and 3). In addition, incumbencyeffects are controlled with a variablefor an incumbent of the Republicanparty (REPINC) and the variable for open-seat elections (NOINC) described above. Table 5 reveals solid support for Fiorina's model: ticket-splitters'ideological

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Richard Born TABLE4 The Effects of Being between the Parties Ideologically on Ticket Splitting
standarderrorsin parentheses) (binomial logit parameters;

Variable InterpartyVoter

1972

1976

1980

1984

1988

.076 -.038 .098 .035 .250* (.133) (.135) (.148) (.107) (.134) .006 -.003 -.004 Voter'sAge -.004 .005* (.004) (.004) (.004) (.004) (.003) -.073 .104 .001 .023 Voter Believes Government -.123 (.079) (.086) (.090) (.085) (.062) Becoming Too Powerful -.011 .045 .056 .040 VoterFollowsPublicAffairs -.039 (.053) (.058) (.067) (.054) (.058) .119 .184** .288*' Voter CaresWhich Party .183*** .146* Wins the Presidency (.077) (.070) (.074) (.055) (.077) -.121 -.302 -.057 -.098 -.152 Voter TrustsGovernment (.161) (.155) (.156) (.162) (.130) .090 .015 ExternalEfficacy .065 -.039 .015 (.090) (.072) (.075) (.096) (.078) District Incumbentfrom 1.301*** 1.137*** 1.214*** 1.277*** 2.094** PartyOpposite Voter's (.176) (.128) (.157) (.164) (.242) Choice for President No IncumbentCandidate .563* .379* .671" .570* 1.283** in District (.208) (.245) (.170) (.250) (.304) Constant 4.104** 3.572*** 3.337*** 3.929*** 2.938** (.356) (.321) (.302) (.353) (.377) 627 N 383 405 392 580 and Note:The analysisuses data only for respondentsvoting in both the presidential the House election in districts with two-partycompetition. Only Form 2 respondentsin 1972 and only personalinterviewrespondentsin 1984 are used. p < .05 (one-tailedtest). *p c .01 (one-tailedtest). ***p< .001 (one-tailedtest).

affinity with a party is significantly associated in every year with a greaterchance of favoringthe presidential candidate of that party." Furthermore,at the aggregatelevel of analysis, the results show that the Democratic-Republican mode of ticket splitting is more popularat the same time that voters are closer to the ideological position of the Republican party. In yet anotherpropositionemergingfromthe policy-balancing ticket splitting is expected to increasewhen the partiesare furtheory,

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TABLE5 The Relationship between Ticket-Splitters'Relative Distance from the Parties and Their Pattern of Divided Voting
standarderrorsin parentheses) (binomial logit parameters; Variable Relative Distance from RepublicanParty RepublicanIncumbent Candidatein District No IncumbentCandidate in District Constant N 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988

.214*** .213** .232** .258*** .313* (.073) (.140) (.061) (.071) (.064) 1.488*** 1.602** 1.594** 1.693** 2.848*** (.496) (.257) (.308) (.234) (.269) .446 .748* .858*** 1.555'** 1.540** (.264) (.434) (.575) (.377) (.342) 4.944*** 4.323*** 4.669*** 4.693*** 3.922*** (.161) (.194) (.157) (.317) (.194) 177 213 115 191 122

Percentageof Ticket Splitters IdeologicallyCloser to 41.9 RepublicanParty IdeologicallyCloser to 33.6 Democratic Party IdeologicallyEquidistant from Both Parties 24.5 Voting Republicanfor Presidentand Democraticor House 79.9

43.8 26.5 29.7

47.0 34.5 18.4

45.6 35.3 19.0

50.2 33.4 16.4

62.3

66.3

76.4

73.0

Note:The analysisuses data only for respondentssplittingtheir ballotsin districtswith two-partycompetition. Ticket-splittingpercentagesfor 1976 have been weighted. p < .05 (one-tailedtest). .01 (one-tailedtest). p ***p .001 (one-tailedtest).

ther apart in ideology (Fiorina 1988, 445; 1989, 25; 1992, 77, 82), since more voters would be situated in the interpartyterritorywhere ticket splitting is supposedlymost common. Our tests have shown that such people have only a modestlyhigherpropensityto split their votes, however. Table 6 reports the correlation between mean perceived interpartydistance and the percentageof ticket-splitters.Since a limited number of cases is available for testing chronologically based propositionsderived from Fiorina'smodel, the resultmust be readcircumspectly.The r-valueis substantiallynegative,however,contraryto expectations based on Fiorina's model.

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TABLE6 The Relationship between Perceived Interpartyand Ideological Distance and the Percentageof Voters Splitting Their Ballots
Percentage of VotersSplitting Ballots for President and for House Candidate 26.3 26.1 26.7 23.8 22.2
r = -.828

Year 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988

Distance between Mean PerceivedIdeologies of Republican and Democratic Parties 1.966 2.170 2.123 2.176 2.410

Note:Analysis based only on respondentsvoting for presidentand House in districts with two-partycompetition. 1976 results have been weighted. Percentageof ticket splitters = 46.916-10.095 * Interpartydistance

Fiorina's fourth proposition is linked to the one just covered. If party polarization grows because only one party becomes more extreme, then straight-ticketballots for this party should decline and straight-ticketballots for the other party should proliferate (1988, 446-47). As one party moves farther from the center, it drags along with it both the M, and M2 midpoints (see the spatial diagramon p. 96). Consequently,the migratingparty's straight ticket zone shrinks and the stable party's lengthens. To perform a systematic analysis, we must amend Fiorina's proposition slightly and hypothesize that the party with the smaller relative drift from the center will have more growth in straight-party voting. Thus, the dependent variable is the quadrennialchange in the percentageof voters voting for both Democraticcandidates,minus the change in the percentagevoting for both Republicancandidates. The independent variable is the degree to which the Democratic position has moderated(i.e., become less liberal)over the four years,minus the extent to which the Republicanposition has moderated (i.e., become less conservative). Since positive values on the dependent variable mean that straight-party Democratic voting has risen more (or fallen less) than has straight-party Republicanvoting and positive values on the independent variabledenote that the Democratic partyhas moderated more (or veered from the center less) than the Republicanparty has, a positive correlationis expected. However,the r-valuein Table 7 is extremely negative; with only four cases, the relatively large and oppositely signed values of the two variablesfor 1972-76 and 1976-80

TABLE 7 The Relationship between Relative Change in the Perceived Ideologica Democratic Party and Relative Change in the Percentage of Straight-Ticke
Changein Percentage Voting Period 1972-76 1976-80 1980-84 1984-88
r

Change Net Change 14.7 -13.2 3.0 11.2 Democratic Party -.161 .255 -.026 -.087

Straight-Ticket Democratic 7.5 -6.9 2.9 6.4


=

Straight-Ticket Republican -7.2 6.3 -0.1 -4.8

-.933

Note:The analysisusesdataonly on respondents and votingin both the presidential the Houseelectionin Resultsfor straight-ticket voting in 1976 havebeen weighted.Positivechangein a party'sperceivedideo towardthe center. The regressionanalysis uses the data on net change in straight-ticket voting and perceivedparty posit Relative change in the percentagevoting a straightDemocraticticke 8.590-45.965 * Relative change in perceivedposition of Democraticp

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dominate the calculation.The 1972-76 case, it is importantto note, is an excellent example of the particularideological scenario envisioned by Fiorina. The Republicanpartyposition is virtuallystationaryat the same time that the Democrats-despite predictionsmade in the wake of the 1972 McGovern candidacy-come to be seen as even more liberal. Yet the net changein straight-ticket voting is more heavily Democratic over this interval than over any other. Our final test is based on Fiorina's argument that ticketsplitting will be influenced by perceptionsof the relative powerof the president and of Congress(1988, 447). As q-the weight assigned to the president'spolicy position-approaches 1.0, the DR and RD locations move fartherapart and become less distinct from DD and RR, respectively.M, (the point halfwaybetween DD and DR) is pushed to the left, and M2(the midpoint between RD and RR) to the right;thus, both split ticket zones expand. (See the spatial diagramon p. 96.) As previously underscored, of course, the q values computed from Fiorina's conditional logit technique are inaccurate. Let us assume, however,that these q's (reportedin Table 3) are not too much at odds with reality and very briefly indicate here the relevant relationship involving them. From 1972 to 1988, r equals .803, a value consistent with the idea that ascribingmore power to the president indeed produces more ticket splitting. Summaryand Conclusions Overall,the results of these tests of Fiorina'spolicy-balancing theory raise doubts about the theory as an explanation of ticketsplitting behavior.In 1980, when Democratscontrolledboth the executive branchand Congress,voters saw less linkagebetweenthe federal government'sissue positions and those of the presidentthan they did in 1988, when there was divided control. These outcomes are not what one would expect if policy were, in fact, conceived to be an amalgamof the stands taken by the presidential and congressionalparties. More important, the utility function for ideological distance was misspecified in Fiorina's test of the premise that the partisan voting combination seen as nearestto the voter'sown ideology will be the one actually selected. Rectifying this error does not challenge his verdict that the public in 1984 may indeed have behavedthis way.The correction is crucial, however,when the elections Fiorina did not consider are studied as well; the best possible predictive values of the properly specified conditional logit equations fall short of the forecastsyielded by independent binomial equations in 1972, 1980, and 1988.

Split-Ticket Voters

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Finally, of the five propositions Fiorina generated as logical extensions of the policy-balancingmodel, only two were supportedin our tests: that ticket splitters are ideologically closer to the party of their presidential choice than that of their House choice and that divided voting will occur more often when the ratio of the president's perceived power to that of Congress is larger.The first result is not remarkable, in view of the oft-cited finding that ideological and national issue concerns are most relevant for voters in their presidential balloting.The second resultdepends upon the supposition that the faulty q values derived from Fiorina's conditional logit procedure approximatethe true policy weights attached to the president. Why does voters'behaviornot fit the policy-balancingmodel? At the core of the model is the thesis that voters see their choice of House candidate as tilting Congresssomewhat in the policy direction they favor.But how realisticis this assumptionif ideology and national issues swayHouse voting decisions only modestly?For example, using 1988 CPS/ANES data, Jacobson constructs eight variables touching upon respondents'evaluations of party ability to deal with issues or their affinity with partyissue positions; he found that six significantly affected presidentialselection but only one influenced the House vote (1990b, Table 11). Instead, House elections hinge on more local matters, such as opinions of the incumbents'solicitude towarddistricteconomic interestsor the qualityof their casework.In short,even if it were true that voters wanted the House to be controlledby a differentparty from that controllingthe executive to balance the relative extremism of a president,nothing ensuresthat voters will dedicate their own congressional votes to furtheringthis end. For citizens who do see an outlet for their ideological and national issue convictions in their House choice, however,one must ask why they would attempt to temper the policies of a president by castinga vote for a particularpartyin the congressionalelection rather than by weighing the positions of the two congressional candidates. Even if House nominees' views-especially those of nonincumbentsare unknown to many people, better-informed voters may achieve some degree of balance if there is meaningfuldivergencebetween the presidentialand House candidates of the same party.Somethingakin to the old-style southern electoral behavior comes to mind here, in which supportfor a more conservativeHouse Democrat could be seen as balancing the pro-civil rights impulses of such presidential candidates as Trumanand Kennedy.Such a policy-moderatingvoter would thus be acting on a naturaldesire to back the more proximate House contender, rather than being forced counterintuitively,as Fiorina's

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model dictates, to vote for whateverHouse candidatehappenedto represent the party farther removed from the voter's own political thinking. Richard Born is Professorof Political Science, VassarCollege, Poughkeepsie,New York12601. NOTES
1. Fiorina uses data from preelectionsurveysfor his independentvariables. With regardto partisanship, independentsleaningtowarda partyaregroupedwith pure independents.Our replicationsof his analysiswill proceedthe same way.(In 1972, however, ideological scales exist only in the postelection survey.) 2. Note that, whenthe voter'sstanceis identicalto a party'sposition or when the voter is to the left or rightof both parties,it does not matterwhich of the two functions is used to generateutility values for any of the four voting options. 3. For 1972 and 1976, furthermore,this study gauges the partisanshipof Housevotes in the waysuggested Eubank respondents' (1985, 959-60): first,it uses the by initial CPS/ANESvariablecombiningthe name of the candidatefor whom the respondent reportedvotingwith the correct(CPS-supplied) partyof the candidate,and then, for voters not ableto remember nameof this candidate, turnsto the succeeding it the item asking the personto identifythe partyhe or she supportedin the House election. Eubankconvincingly arguesthat this approachyields the most accuratemeasuresof actual voting behavior.Relianceonly on the formervariablemeansexcludingthe manypeople unable to recalltheircandidate's name;relianceonly on the latterwouldmeanrecording wrongly the votes of those who misconstrue theircandidate's party.Morerecentsurveyshavesimply asked respondentsto locate their choice on a list of candidatenames. 4. Coding for variables in the 1980 equations has been adjusted from that used by Fiorina in the 1984 equations because, in this one election, the White House partyis Democratic.Thus, with respectto the dependentvariables,a value of one in the two binomial equations representsa Democraticvote, while the orderingof the conditional logit alternativesbecomes DD, DR, RD, and RR. Similar changeshave been made, whereverrelevant, in constructingthe independentvariables. 5. Computingthe predictivepowerof the 1972-84 equationsat .05 intervals of q, as in Table 2, yielded maximumand minimum forecastingpercentagesthat were not eclipsed by any of those calculatedat points within intervals.In 1988, however,the best accuracy(73.0%)occurredat q values of .51 to .54 and .73 to .74. 6. Here, it is necessaryonly that q < 1.0. 7. Five items formedthe additivescale for the TRUST variablein the equation: Do people in governmentwastetax money (usedin the surveys1972-88); howoften can the governmentbe trustedto do what'sright(1972-88); is the governmentrunby a few big interests (1972-88); do almost all people in governmentknow what they'redoing (1972-80); are quite a few people runninggovernmentcrooked(1972-88)? Threeitems
formed the scale for the EXTEFFICACY variable: do public officials care much what people

think (1972-88); do congressmen lose touchwith the peopleveryquickly(1972-80); are parties only interestedin people's votes but not their opinions (1972-80)?
8. Since the survey items used to develop the GOVTPOWER TRUST and variables

wereaskedonly of Form2 respondentsin 1972, and the GOVTPOWER item was askedonly of those assignedto the personalinterviewsample in 1984, other respondentsin these two years have been droppedfrom the analysishere. In all elections, "don'tknows"on

Split-Ticket Voters
the items comprising GOVTPOWER, PUBAFFAIRS,CAREPRES,TRUST, and

115
EXTEFFICACY are included

so that the numberof cases does not fall to unacceptably levels. "Don't knows"on low variable,however,are removedbecause any ideologicalscale pertinentto the INTERPARTY that scale is paramountto the propositionbeing tested. 9. When the ticket-splitting frequencyof votersbetweenand not betweenthe votersdo split morein all years, partiesis comparedwith no controlsapplied,interparty but the differenceis significant at least at the .05 level only in 1984 and 1988. 10. Strength of partisanship-a likely predictor of ticket splitting and of being betweenthe partiesideologically-was left out of the equationsin orderto maximize the odds that any relationshipbetweenthe INTERPARTYvariableand the dependent variable would be manifested. Its inclusion (2 if voter is independentleaner or pure independent,1 if weakpartisan,0 if strongpartisan)changesthe resultsonly marginally; the INTERPARTY are parameters weakeneda bit over all, but the variablecontinuesto have a significanteffect in 1988. 1 In an analysiscomparingrespondentdistancefromeach partywithin sep1. arategroupsof Republican-Democratic Democratic-Republican and voters,all 10 comparisonswere found to be significant in the hypothesizeddirection at least at the .01 level.

REFERENCES
Broder,David S. 1972. TheParty'sOver:TheFailureof Politicsin America.New York: Harper& Row. Erikson,RobertS. 1988."ThePuzzleof MidtermLoss."Journalof Politics50:1011-29. Eubank,Robert B. 1985. "IncumbentEffects on Individual-Level Voting Behaviorin Congressional Elections: A Decade of Exaggeration."Journal of Politics 47:958-67. Fiorina,MorrisP. 1988. "TheReaganYears: Turningto the Rightor Gropingtowardthe In Middle?" TheResurgence Conservatism Anglo-American in Democracies, of ed. BarryCooper,Allan Kornberg, and WilliamMishler.Durham,NC: Duke University Press. Centerfor AmericanPolitiFiorina,MorrisP. 1989. "AnEraof Divided Government." cal Studies, HarvardUniversity,OccasionalPaper 89-6. New York:Macmillan. Fiorina, MorrisP. 1992. Divided Government. A In Jacobson,Gary C. 1989. "Congress: SingularContinuity." The Electionsof 1988. ed. Michael Nelson. Washington,DC: CongressionalQuarterlyPress. in Jacobson,Gary C. 1990a. TheElectoralOriginsof DividedGovernment: Competition U.S. House Elections, 1946-88. Boulder:WestviewPress. Jacobson,Gary C. 1990b."ThePersistenceof DemocraticHouse Majorities:Structure or Politics?"Presentedat the annual meeting of the AmericanPolitical Science Association, San Francisco. Ladd, EverettC. 1985. "On Mandates,Realignments,and the 1984 PresidentialElection." Political Science Quarterly100:1-25. SuzanneL. 1988. "Attitude and Parker, Inconsistency Split-Ticket Voting:AnotherLook at an Enduring Questionwith New Data."Presentedat the annualmeetingof the AmericanPolitical Science Association, Chicago. AmericanPartiesand Politicsin the CommunicaPhillips, Kevin P. 1975. Mediacracy: tions Age. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. Stanley,HaroldW., and RichardG. Niemi. 1990. VitalStatisticson AmericanPolitics, 2d ed. Washington,DC: CongressionalQuarterlyPress.

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