A research study co-authored by political science Prof. Laurel Harbridge-Yong analyzed voters’ perceptions of candidates before primary elections, finding suggestive evidence that Democratic and Republican primary voters prioritize different signals of electability.
Harbridge-Yong worked on the study with University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Prof. Timothy Ryan, University of California, Santa Barbara’s Sarah Anderson and two other researchers.
The researchers selected nine 2022 primary elections from high-profile competitive races in Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania as their sample.
The researchers focused on ideological moderation, office-holding experience and fundraising as characteristics that influence voters’ understanding of a candidate’s electability.
Although the study, published in June, did not definitively conclude whether the difference between the Democratic and Republican primary voters was statistically significant, Harbridge-Yong said the evidence indicated Democratic voters valued ideological moderation while Republican voters prioritized fundraising.
She said Republican attacks on the Democratic Party as “the radical left” are political messaging and not fully factual.
“When people have a narrow media diet and low political knowledge and information, it can be effective in creating a divisive othering of the other party to refer to them as the radical left,” Harbridge-Yong said. “Evidence by Adam Bonica (at) Stanford and others shows that Democrats have not moved as far left over the last 50 years as Republicans have moved right.”
Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders hold political beliefs that are not shared by all Democratic politicians or voters, Harbridge-Yong said, but Republicans have linked these positions, held by a few politicians, to the entire Democratic Party.
Both sides of the political aisle use this strategy, she added.
A possible advantage to selecting moderate candidates in primary elections is their ability to persuade centrists and voters from the other political party, Ryan said.
“Ideological moderation weighs for or against your electability when it comes to the general election,” he said. “There’s possibly a strategic advantage, even if you’re an extremist yourself, to moderate an institute nominating a moderate because that person might be more likely to win the general election.”
Ryan said campaigns have some capacity to orient voters from both political parties to focus on specific topics when assessing a candidate’s electability. For example, he noted that immigration and rising prices were critical political issues during the 2024 general election, partly due to efforts by President Donald Trump’s campaign to focus on them.
Additionally, media coverage can shift voters’ understanding of electability. Ryan said journalists could clarify where the money candidates receive comes from and should emphasize how previous political experience may be useful when evaluating ability to pass legislation or accurately representing constituents’ interests in public policy.
Fundraising was considered the most important candidate attribute for all voters in the study, which was driven primarily by Republican voters.
Anderson said she was surprised that fundraising trumped ideological considerations. She added that she thought considering value alignment and what others may think of candidates’ positions might be a natural approach to assessing electability.
When studying voting behavior, she said, individual choices must be understood in the context of a collective decision, which can make voting a challenge.
“I need to think about, especially in primary elections, what I think everybody else is going to do, because it doesn’t really behoove me, under most situations, to give my vote to someone who has no chance of actually getting elected,” Anderson said.
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