ISSUE OWNERSHIP IN PRESIDENTIAL AND SENATORIAL … · ISSUE OWNERSHIP IN PRESIDENTIAL AND...

ISSUE OWNERSHIP IN PRESIDENTIAL AND SENATORIAL ELECTIONS, 1980-2004

by

ANDREW PIERCE

(Under the Direction of Jamie L. Carson)

ABSTRACT

When searching for campaign effects in modern elections, agenda setting according to

principles of issue ownership is a possible candidate. When parties or candidates campaign on

issues they own, issue ownership theory predicts they will receive an electoral boost. However,

the current understanding of issue ownership does not distinguish the theories of issue ownership

nor does it provide comprehensive evidence for issue ownership effects. Using data on U.S.

Presidential and Senatorial Elections from 1980-2004, this paper fills in current gaps in issue

ownership theory. Results show support for the Campaign Effects model of issue ownership in

both Senatorial and Presidential Elections.

INDEX WORDS: Issue Ownership, Presidential, Senatorial, Elections, Campaign

Effects, Agenda Setting


by

ANDREW PIERCE

A.B., University of Georgia, 2009

A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

MASTER OF ARTS

ATHENS, GEORGIA

2009

© 2009

ANDREW WILSON PIERCE

All Rights Reserved


by

ANDREW PIERCE

Major Professor: Jamie L. Carson

Committee: Michael Crespin

Richard Vining

Electronic Version Approved:

Maureen Grasso

Dean of the Graduate School

The University of Georgia

December 2009

iv

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

As with all of my endeavors in life, I am tremendously grateful for the loving support of my

parents, Tracy and Linda Pierce. What’s more, I would like to acknowledge the guidance and support

of my committee: Dr. Richard Vining, Dr. Michael Crespin, and particularly my major professor, Dr.

Jamie Carson.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................iv

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................vii

LIST OF FIGURES......................................................................................................viii

CHAPTERS

1 INTRODUCTION ...............................................................................................1

2 PRIOR RESEARCH ............................................................................................4

Agenda Setting.................................................................................................4

Models of Issue Ownership ..............................................................................5

Types of Issues.................................................................................................8

Prior Applications of Issue Ownership ...........................................................10

Shortcomings in the Previous Literature .........................................................14

3 THEORY AND HYPOTHESIS.........................................................................18

Theory ...........................................................................................................19

Hypotheses.....................................................................................................22

4 DATA AND METHODS...................................................................................26

Data ...............................................................................................................26

Methods .........................................................................................................27

5 FINDINGS ........................................................................................................31

Results ...........................................................................................................31

vi

Contributions and Further Analysis ................................................................47

Discussion......................................................................................................48

WORKS CITED .......................................................................................................................50

APPENDIX ..............................................................................................................................54

vii

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 1: Presidential Races - 1980-2004....................................................................................40

Table 2: Senatorial Elections – 1980-2004 ................................................................................40

Table 3: 1984 Presidential Election ...........................................................................................42

Table 4: 1992 Presidential Election ...........................................................................................42

Table 5: 1982 Senate Election ...................................................................................................43

Table 6: 1992 Senate Election ...................................................................................................43

Table 7: Senatorial Elections Concurrent with Presidential Elections.........................................45

Table 8: Senatorial Elections in Mid-Term Election Years ........................................................45

viii

LIST OF FIGURES

Page

Figure 1: Modeling Valence Issues............................................................................................21

Figure 2: Crime Mentions in Party Platforms ............................................................................32

Figure 3: Education Mentions in Party Platforms ......................................................................33

Figure 4: Democratic Advantage – Education............................................................................33

Figure 5: Democratic Advantage – Crime .................................................................................34

Figure 6: Issue Support for Presidential Candidates 1980-2000: Crime......................................36

Figure 7: Issue Support for Presidential Candidates 1980-2000: Education................................36

Figure 8: Which Party can Better Handle Law and Order Problems? 1980-2000 .......................38

Figure 9: Which Party can Better Handle Education Problems? 1980-2000 ...............................38

1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

One of the broader questions in political science is “Do Campaigns Matter?” Generally,

political scientists are able to reliably forecast presidential elections based on prevailing

economic and political conditions independent of campaign effects (Abramowitz 1988;

Campbell 1992). As such, it appears as though campaigns play little to no role in influencing

electoral outcomes. However, other research has demonstrated how campaigns can and do play a

role in influencing elections within national contexts (Holbrook 1996).

One of the ways in which campaigns are purported to affect campaigns is through agenda

setting. Campaigns, when deciding on talking points and press releases, seek to strengthen their

candidate’s electoral fortunes by portraying them favorably in the backdrop of local, objective

conditions (Holbrook 1994; Herrnson 2008). To do this, campaigns emphasize those issues on

which the public views their candidate favorably as the most important issues in a given election.

When forming an agenda of issues to emphasize, campaigns usually consider the reputation of

the candidate as well as his party (Petrocik 1996; Hayes 2005).

Thus, one important area of research addressing the influence of campaigns regards the

influence of campaigns in agenda setting. Though there are a number of ways in which

candidates and parties set agendas, agenda-setting frequently takes the form of some variation of

issue ownership. Issue ownership refers to the practice of selectively emphasizing issues in a

campaign based on those issues on which a party or candidate holds a reputational advantage.

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When a campaign is selectively emphasizing issues, it cannot absolutely control the

issues with which the electorate is concerned. For example, if unemployment is high, a campaign

cannot make people ignore their unemployment or the unemployment of their friends and

neighbors. Campaigns, however, can control the framing of these issues. In the example above,

unemployment framed from a Democratic perspective is a failure of the educational system to

provide training for white-collar jobs that are more reliable in hard times. This ubiquitous “spin”

is a significant possibility for how campaigns can affect elections.

Campaigns choose issues based on the reputational advantage that the candidate or party

has on any given issue. For example, Democrats are traditionally seen as the party of education

(Petrocik 1996). As such, if educational conditions are bad, one would expect that Democrats

would emphasize education more frequently than other issues in their campaign. Likewise, a

candidate who spent 30 years as a teacher would likely emphasize educational issues in order to

benefit from his experience in education.

One possible instance in which issue ownership may affect electoral outcomes is the

2000 election. Despite the lack of candidate attention addressing crime as a major issue in the

2000 election, many media commentators considered Bush tougher on crime. Furthermore,

voters generally associate crime control as an issue “owned” by Republicans (Petrocik et al.

2003). In states where crime rates were high, it is possible that Bush could have capitalized on

his reputation to swing votes. In a race as close as the 2000 presidential election, there is an

interest regarding the electoral consequences of such perceptions.

There is reason to believe that this effect extends beyond the 2000 election. Nixon took

the “War on Poverty,” which was a Democratic initiative, and shifted it to a Republican “War on

Crime." Likewise, in the 1980s, Reagan and Bush pushed for mandatory sentencing and

3

retributive justice. Finally, Democrat Bill Clinton was viewed by many as “soft” on crime

(Marion 1994; Valentino 1999; Gottschalk 2006).

Though many historians and other scholars view crime as an issue owned by

Republicans, there has been no research into the electoral consequences of this ownership.

Previous research has shown that the public is aware of the connection between Republicans and

law an order (e.g. Petrocik 1996). However, the question arises as to if the public holds

Republican candidates accountable in times of high crime rates.

As a possible answer to if and how campaigns matter, issue ownership is an important

component of research on elections. As will be discussed below, studies concerning the electoral

consequences of issue ownership are rare. In addition, for such an intuitive concept, there is little

evidence for evaluating competing theories of issue ownership. This thesis seeks to fill in some

of these gaps in hopes of providing a foundation for understanding issue ownership.

This thesis will begin with a description of the literature on issue ownership and its

electoral consequences. Next, it highlights shortcomings in this research. In order to address

these shortcomings, I hypothesize that, when voters experience unfavorable conditions, they will

respond by voting for the party seen as best able to improve those conditions. This thesis will

conclude with a description of the methods used to test this hypothesis as well as a discussion of

the implications of possible findings.

4

CHAPTER 2

PRIOR RESEARCH

Agenda Setting

When looking for campaign effects in elections, prior research mentions the issue agenda

as a potential area that can be manipulated by campaigns (Abbe et al. 2003). By manipulating

the issue agenda, campaigns can execute one of their primary functions: the distribution of

information for the purpose of persuading voters (Holbrook 1996). Campaigns seek to use the

communication tools available to them to make some issues more salient than other and, thus,

shape the considerations that people take into account when making judgments about their

particular candidates (Scheufele and Tewksbury 2007).

Campaigns benefit from the issue agenda through direct and indirect effects. Through

various types of advertisements, campaigns directly communicate with voters. This leads to a

better-informed and more active electorate (Freedman et al. 2004). In addition to promoting

these democratic virtues, advertising an issue agenda is also an important means of

communicating complicated policy positions to low-information voters (Herrnson and Patterson

2000).

Indirectly, campaigns can take advantage of media coverage of elections. Media

coverage, which is free to campaigns, can increase the persuasiveness of direct advertisements

by reinforcing the message or increasing the audience (Iyengar and Kinder 1987; Ansolabehere

and Iyengar 1994). Also, repetitive media coverage raises the salience and accessibility of an

issue which, in turn, increases the persuasive power of advertisements about that issue (Lau et al.

5

1991; Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1994). Finally, favorable news coverage of campaign events,

like debates or candidate appearances on talk shows, can increase the influence those events have

in affecting campaign outcomes (Holbrook 1996; Shaw 1999).

Given the benefit campaigns gain from controlling the issue agenda, candidates will

invest resources in order to set the issue agenda. Arguably, issue ownership principles offer the

best strategy candidates can follow for setting the issue agenda (Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1994;

Petrocik 1996; Herrnson and Patterson 2000; Abbe et al. 2003). In general, issue ownership

holds that parties have gained issue-handling reputations through past performance.

Consequently, campaigns should try to force issues on which they have reputational advantages

to the top of the issue agenda (Petrocik 1996). Because of the influence of the issue agenda

described above, candidates should then gain electoral boosts from campaigning on “owned”

issues. Prior research bears out this conclusion on more than one occasion (Abbe et al. 2003;

Petrocik et al. 2003; Herrnson 2008).

However, for a theory that answers how a campaign can influence election outcomes,

very little is known about issue ownership. For example, though agenda setting research

generally considers issue ownership to be a recent theory, it actually traces its roots back to older

theories of spatial voting. The following section will trace a history of issue ownership theory

leading into the shortcomings of the literature about issue ownership.

Models of Issue Ownership

Issue ownership, as a theory, grew out of the work of Anthony Downs in his seminal

work, An Economic Theory of Democracy. In that work, Downs offers a “logic of basic voting”

through which rational electors determine how to vote in elections. Loosely recounted, Downs

argues that voters will compare the performance of parties in office against hypothetical

6

performances of other parties. From this comparison, voters will calculate an “expected party

differential,” which expresses how the voters view the performance of the parties at hand. If the

differential favors the party in power, then the voter will cast his vote in their favor. If the

differential is not in their favor, he will vote for the other party; if they are equal, he will abstain

(Downs 1957, 38-45).

One complication of this spatial model lies in information costs. As a pure theory, Downs

assumes complete and costless information (Downs 1957, 45). As merely a simplifying

assumption, there is little reason to believe that this assumption correctly models reality. Downs

concedes this point, and offers that, though a voter cannot know the difference between the

actual governance of parties, a voter can know the different policies that a party supports (Downs

1957, 45-46). As such, this relaxed assumption circumvents preliminary problems with

uncertainty in the model.

Issue ownership questions the validity of this weakened assumption. The first foray into a

detailed exposition of issue ownership would be by Budge and Farlie (1983). In this work, the

authors try to predict elections in 23 democracies using only parties as cues. The driving problem

for their inquiry comes from the extremely complicated calculus explained in Downs’s model.

Even weakening the information assumption so that voters only calculate expected utility of

policies, it is “difficult for electors to make any estimates of these at all, let alone to calculate

them realistically” (Budge and Farlie 1983, 146). As a solution, voters can simplify the

calculation by “grouping specific issues into broad types, which can be assigned to one party or

the other on the basis of the consequences of change” (Budge and Farlie 1983, 148). This

“selective emphasis model,” named for parties’ strategically emphasizing their issue strengths,

7

reduces the decisional calculus to a simple cost benefit analysis of each party based on their

strengths and weaknesses with the issues at hand.

Though the “selective emphasis” model was perhaps the first fully specified model of

issue ownership, Rabinowitz and MacDonald (1989) offer a competing model of issue

ownership. Their model, known as “directional theory,” modifies the traditional spatial model by

again weakening the information requirements placed on voters. Based on a theory of symbolic

politics, Rabinowitz and MacDonald argue that voters calculate candidate preference not based

on a continuum of policy alternatives but rather through reactions to issues as symbols. In

general, a voter will compare the issue stance of a candidate with (1) direction and (2) intensity

(Rabinowitz and MacDonald 1989, 94). As such, the calculus of voting does not rely on a

complex understanding of policy alternatives but rather on an understanding of a candidate’s

issues and intensity. Though not directly incorporated into the theory, parties do play a role in

directional theory in as much as they dictate issue directions to candidates and act as voting cues

to voters (Rabinowitz and MacDonald 1989, 114).

The latest and most frequent reference in elections literature today follows the issue

ownership model proposed by Petrocik (1996). Petrocik modifies earlier models of issue voting

by shifting emphasis from the parties or candidates to campaigns. Parties have reputations for

“handling” certain issues; the job of parties is to convince the voters of the salience of those

issues. In this model, the key for voters is not the policies that a party will pursue but rather the

problems the party will fix (Petrocik 1996, 830). This “campaign effects” model argues that,

when issues better handled by one party are salient during an election, low-information voters

will favor that party. Campaigns play a role in that they promote certain issues to the forefront of

the election agenda. In analyzing the 1980 presidential election, Petrocik finds that campaigns

8

did play a role in shifting voters toward issues that favored Reagan, and that this shift helped

Reagan win the election.

These models of issue ownership commonly address a problem of information in the

traditional spatial model. Likewise, all use issue ownership as an information shortcut for voters.

Finally, all acknowledge, to some degree, the role that parties play in conveying issue content

and saliency to voters.

However, these models also differ in several important ways. First, the selective

emphasis model views the candidate as secondary in issue communication to the party. In

contrast, directional voting views the candidate as the primary source of issues for the voter. The

campaign effects sees a more mixed approach wherein parties and candidates both play a role in

conveying issue content to voters. In addition, the selective emphasis model still requires voters

to compute internally a cost-benefit analysis based on the benefits offered in the issues advocated

by parties. Directional theory and the campaign effects model expect much less sophistication

from their voters in that most of the information is collected and synthesized by non-voting

entities.

Types of Issues

The preceding difference concerning the information synthesis done by voters brings up

an important concern about the types of issues presented in issue ownership. Before considering

the applications and shortcomings of the aforementioned models, it would be beneficial to

consider the different types of issues presented in issue ownership theory.

The first categorization of issues central to issue ownership theory comes from Stokes’

(1963) original criticisms of the spatial model. In criticizing Downs’s axiom of ordered

dimensions, Stokes comments how some policy choices have only one clear alternative. For

9

example, in 1952 no one preferred more corruption over less corruption; thus, both parties and

all voters occupied one policy point on Downs’s policy dimension (Stokes 1963, 373). These

issues, where parties and voters all share the same preference and policy space, are valence

issues. These differ from position issues, such as abortion, where voters and parties occupy a

number of different ideal points.

When looking at traditional representations of policy space, Republicans and Democrats

are given policy positions with Democrats on the left and Republicans on the right (Gabel and

Huber 2000). According to spatial voting theories, voters then locate themselves on this space

and vote for whichever candidate or party to which they are nearer (Black 1958). Valence issues

are those issues on which the policy space does not conform to this traditional conception. When

voters locate themselves throughout the entire policy space, parties can afford to take positions

throughout the policy space as well. However, when voters all occupy the same policy point, as

is the case with valence issues, parties cannot afford to position themselves far away from the

public; thus, they seek to hold the same policy point as the public. Stokes described this point as

the one clear alternative that parties have (Stokes 1963).

The second main distinction of issues appeared later in work by Carmines and Stimson

(1980). As opposed to the general assumption that all issue voters are the same, Carmines and

Stimson argue that there are sophisticated and low-information issue voters. Furthermore, this

breakdown is most dramatic on issues that are “hard” in contrast to “easy” issues. Easy issues are

those issues on which most voters have a “gut” reaction that dictates their preference. Carmines

and Stimson offer the example of segregation. A voter does not need to know the intricate ins

and outs of segregation in order to form an opinion on the issue (Carmines and Stimson 1980, 80).

The Vietnam War, on the other hand, is a very complicated issue, or bundle of issues, that

10

requires a large sum of information prior to opinion formation. Withdrawal in and of itself

concerned many other issues about international affairs for which most voters would not take the

time to consider. This is an example of a hard issue. In some ways, the hard issues advocated by

Carmines and Stimson parallel the positional issues of Stokes while the easy issues have a

certain “directional” feel about them.

Prior Applications of Issue Ownership

Prior applications of issue ownership vary in the types of issues they address as well as

the manner in which issue ownership is measured. Perhaps the first foray into issue ownership

was Explaining and Predicting Elections. In this work, Budge and Farlie seek to provide a

comprehensive explanation for changes in party gains across countries (Budge and Farlie 1983,

21). Their model for explaining election outcomes was the “selective emphasis model.” In

addition, Budge and Farlie emphasize the role of parties as an information shortcut. Because

parties “own” certain issues, voters need only know what issues are important to them in order to

choose the appropriate party in the voting booth (Budge and Farlie 1983, 25).

In order to test selective emphasis theory, Budge and Farlie examine elections in twenty-

three democracies. Though most of these countries are Western European, several are from Asia.

After categorizing the parties in those democracies into two different categories, the authors

proceed to estimate how certain issues in past elections have caused these parties’ vote shares to

deviate from those parties’ baseline in postwar elections. Their paper then uses this estimate to

predict vote shares in upcoming elections. In general, the selective emphasis model performs

better than other naïve predictors of party vote-share do.

Sixteen years later, the publication of the directional model offered the next major work

on issue ownership. Directional theory, like the selective emphasis model, lowers the

11

information constraint required of voters. Rabinowitz and MacDonald support the directional

model by pointing out how survey questions capture the essence of this theory. Surveys

generally ask on which side of an issue voters fall as well as how strongly they feel about this

issue (Rabinowitz and MacDonald 1989, 96). Directional theory built upon spatial modeling by

creating a two dimensional policy space wherein voters could compare their proximity to a

candidate in both direction and intensity (Rabinowitz and MacDonald 1989, 100).

To test this model, Rabinowitz and MacDonald use data from the 1984 National Election

Studies. Based on issue questions in the survey, the authors compare the effectiveness of

directional theory against the spatial model in predicting candidate evaluations. The data bear out

the theory that voters tend to think about issues in two dimensions (Rabinowitz and MacDonald

1989, 103).

The most recent theoretical exposition of issue ownership theory is that of the campaign

effects model espoused by Petrocik (1996). In this model, voters’ policy preferences change

slowly, and they are relatively uncertain about the most important problems. As such, differences

in election outcomes depend on changes in the issue agenda rather that in the preferences of

voters. These changes result from campaign activities; campaigns will try to push forward issues

on which voters view them as more capable.

Petrocik (1996) takes a three step approach to supporting his theory. First, survey data

from the early 1990s shows that both parties do indeed have certain issues on which voters see

them as more capable. Second, when looking at candidate-oriented articles during presidential

campaigns from 1952-1988, patterns emerge which do suggest that candidates emphasize those

issues they own. Finally, using NES data from the early 1960s to 1992, correlations

demonstrated how the more a voter mentioned issues owned by a certain party, the more likely

12

he was to vote for that party. After applying these findings to the 1980 presidential election,

Petrocik finds that Reagan’s ability to campaign on Democratic issues gave him a vote advantage

over Jimmy Carter (Petrocik 1996, 832-836, 842).

Further evidence for the campaign effects model was presented by Petrocik et al

(Petrocik et al. 2003). In this article, the authors used content analysis of TV ads and newspaper

coverage to test if politicians actually campaigned on issues their party owned and if the media

accurately reflected this emphasis. Through a dataset of all presidential elections from 1952-

2000, the authors also find that there is evidence of inter-election variability in issue voting.

Specifically, the 2000 case exhibited an outlier in that Democratic issues dominated a larger

portion of the issue agenda than in previous years.

Whereas prior research focused mainly on establishing the foundation of issue ownership

theory, most work on issue ownership since has been on the applications of issue ownership. One

twist on the theory addresses a yet unaddressed problem in the theory. In “Issue Ownership and

Party Choice,” van der Brug seeks to explain how issue ownership affects individual vote choice

(van der Brug 2004). Research prior to this point focused mainly on explaining aggregate

outcomes of elections. Though Petrocik (1996) does employ individual-level analysis, the survey

questions used do not help explain how issue salience could affect party choice at an individual

level. Using data from a 1998 survey of Dutch voters, van der Brug uses a battery of questions to

separate voter ideology from party preference based on issue ownership. The results show that, at

an individual level, campaign effects do exist as indirect sources of party choice (van der Brug

2004, 224).

One of the yet unexplored consequences of issue ownership is that of issue convergence.

As detailed above, issue ownership states that parties will emphasize issues that their parties own

13

in order to gain an electoral advantage. Under issue ownership, then one could conclude that

parties would rarely address the same issues. Thus, evidence of issue convergence would

contradict the influence of issue ownership in an election (Sigelman and Buell 2004, 651). Using

data drawn from the New York Times during presidential elections from 1960-2000, Sigelman

and Buell (2004) calculate an issue convergence score to measure to what degree candidates

spoke about the same issues. Overwhelmingly they find a large degree of issue convergence,

which suggests that issue ownership as formulated does not fully explain the use of issues in

campaigns (Sigelman and Buell 2004, 659).

Though this suggests a possible shortcoming of the issue ownership model, it is important

to note that the methodology pursued by Sigelman and Buell (2004) does not fully capture the

influence of issue ownership. When calculating issue convergence scores, Sigelman and Buell

only take into account the category of issues that were reported in the campaign and not the

content (Sigelman and Buell 2004, 655). This shortchanges issue ownership theory, because, as

formulated by Petrocik, candidates frame the other parties issues in terms of issues they own

(Petrocik 1996). In other words, talking about the same issues in a campaign is not contradictory

to issue ownership theory. For example, in the 2000 election, Gore and Bush talked about many

of the same Democratic issues, but Bush talked about the issues from a moral values standpoint

as opposed to Gore who discussed them from a social welfare standpoint (Petrocik et al. 2003).

Under Sigelman and Buell’s construction, this is a situation free of the influence of issue

ownership, though it is not clear that this is the case.

A further explanation of issue convergence is pursued by Damore (2005). Unlike

Sigelman and Buell, convergence is perfectly compatible with issue ownership, and, in fact, is an

expected outcome of issue ownership (Damore 2005, 75). Specifically, there should be certain

14

times in the campaign when candidates would be expected to converge on issues and certain

times when they would not. Using campaign advertising data for presidential elections from

1976-1996, Damore tests the idea that issues are emphasized within a strategic backdrop

(Damore 2005, 77). In general the results bear out the hypothesis that issue convergence is

inversely related to the difference in levels of support for the two candidates (Damore 2005, 83).

One special topic in relation to issue convergence concerns convergence not between

parties but between parties and voters. Green (2007) notes how, in the United Kingdom, voters

have coalesced around certain policy positions. As such, for many political issues the general

electorate agrees about how to address the issue. This type of politics fits in with the

aforementioned “valence issues” of Stokes (1963). Using panel and other survey data from the

British Election Studies from 1987-2005, Green shows how both the voters and parties have

come to terms about what should be done regarding certain economic and social issues (Green

2007, 633-646).

As a result, valence issues and issues of competence have become the norm for British

politics (Green 2007, 651). These results suggest that as voters and parties converge, valence

issues become more important; likewise, highly polarized parties might lead to an emphasis on

policy issues.

Shortcomings in the Previous Literature

The prior overview of the literature uncovers a number of shortcomings in the current

issue ownership literature. First, and foremost, there is not one consistent model of issue

ownership. Almost all the literature addresses the foundational works, but this usually amounts

to little more than lip service. Generally, later works usually reference Petrocik (1996), though

they offer no argument for why prior models are or should be rejected. Consequently, the

15

foundational models of issue ownership lack confirmation theoretically or empirically. Since,

there has been no comparison of these models there has also been no justification for using one

model instead of the other. Thus, any work that uses only one model is lacking justification at

this point.

Another concern drawn from the issue ownership literature is the lack of evidence for the

electoral effects of issue ownership. Aside from a few works, namely Budge and Farlie (1983),

Petrocik (1996), van der Brug (2004), and Green (2007), the effect of issue ownership in

determining electoral outcome remains unaddressed. Even in the aforementioned cases that

incorporate electoral impacts, the evidence is usually contained within one election year. Though

this provides some support for issue ownership theory, any model of election outcomes for one

year has a potential for bias due to any number of reasons. As such, this research would benefit

from longitudinal study which might show a more durable effect over time. Because prior work

shows that issue ownership varies from year to year, a longitudinal study would provide more

opportunities for discovering when, and under what conditions, issue ownership plays a role in

determining election outcomes.

One concern stemming from the lack of attention paid to electoral outcome regards the

theoretical implications behind how issue ownership works. One general research strategy

pursued in the literature is to use survey data to see which issues voters associate with which

parties. This presents a problem because there is no way to tell where issue reputations come

from in this situation. For example, in Petrocik’s first study, 1980 NES respondents are asked

which party they see as better being able to handle crime (1996). However, from this question, it

is impossible to tell if they hold this view because the Republican Party’s past performance

indicated capability in this area or if Reagan’s campaigning on this issue gave them this

16

impression. This concern is complicated by Petrocik et al (2003) where the comparisons of

presidential TV ads show that Reagan campaigned on this issue more frequently than Carter.

This ambiguity about the role that candidates play stems from confusion about the exact

mechanism of issue ownership. Because the foundational models of issue ownership have not

been compared, there is not evidence contrasting the sources of issue ownership. In addition, the

role of candidates in determining ownership reputations is further confounded because most of

the research examined only executive elections. Executive elections are highly candidate-

oriented within the United States which might cause confusion about candidate-based issue

ownership and party-based issue ownership. Though this is true of congressional elections also,

presidential elections tend to set their own agendas more frequently than congressional elections

that may follow a presidential candidate’s lead. None of the prior work uses a comprehensive

research agenda that combines survey data, executive level election returns, and legislative

election returns to provide compelling evidence for issue ownership. In fact, the literature largely

ignores legislative returns.

Again, a lack of theoretical clarity within the literature leads to an ambiguity about the

function of issue ownership. According to Selective Emphasis theory, parties are the active

agents who present new information to voters in an attempt to sway their votes. Directional

Theory, on the other hand, argues that voters are involved in an active calculus trying to

determine the position and intensity of a candidate’s beliefs, cued by party affiliation. In the

Campaign Effects model, candidates use the reputation of their party to influence vote choice.

What the prior literature has failed to accomplish is to provide unbiased evidence in any

direction. Research that focuses only on presidential elections biases the results towards the

Campaign Effects model. Evidence from survey data biases the results toward Directional

17

Theory. The Selective Emphasis model would likely gain from research based only on legislative

studies, if there were any studies like that.

In addition, there is little consistency as to the issues included within the study. The

literature makes little determination between valence issues and issues with clear preference

ordering. This could be a problem if evidence supports ordered issues and not valence issues. For

example, if clearly-ordered issues, such as abortion, show electoral effects but not valence issues,

this suggests that issue ownership is actually just spatial voting. Thus, any study of issue

ownership should establish support for valence issue ownership. As none of the studies

distinguishes between the two, issue ownership may very well be spatial voting by another name.

One final, and minor, critique of the literature is a lack of attention paid to legislative

elections in the United States. In any given election year, the majority of national and statewide

elections will be for legislative office. Thus, any voting theory seeking to establish maximum

applicability should at least address legislative elections. Furthermore, no aspect of issue

ownership as put forward so far necessarily conflicts or excludes legislative elections. This thesis

fills that gap by applying issue-ownership theories in two legislative contexts.

18

CHAPTER 3

THEORY AND HYPOTHESES

As detailed above, the current literature on issue ownership is lacking in several

important dimensions. The purpose of this thesis is to fill some of the gaps in the literature,

beginning with the most foundational issues. Primary to this purpose is providing empirical

evidence to compare the various models. Such evidence depends on a variety of data sources

including survey data, campaign data, and electoral results. This multifaceted approach should be

able to parse out some of the actual effects of issue ownership which can then be compared with

theoretical predictions to evaluate models.

Another gap in the literature concerns the ambiguity about candidate effects and party

effects. As an attempt to separate out these effects, this thesis will use different elections from

the same electorate. Specifically, this thesis will compare presidential and senatorial results from

states within the same year. This technique has been used before in studying issue ownership

with positive results (Ansolabehere and Iyengar 1994). This could potentially separate out the

effects of candidates and parties. If the effect is constant for all elections, then this suggests a

party effect, because voters should not vote for senatorial candidates on the basis of the

presidents’ positions. Likewise, different effects between presidential and senatorial results

within the same state suggest that candidates do indeed play a role in determining issue

ownership.

This strategy addresses only part of the problem. In order to separate durable party

reputation from year-specific candidate ownership, a longitudinal study will compare the effects

19

over time. In this case, long-term effects of issue ownership suggest that parties play the primary

role in determining issue ownership. Results that show support on a year-by-year basis only

would support candidates as a source.

This thesis will fill in further gaps in the literature by focusing on valence issues and

limiting these issues to the United States. Valence issues, based on Stokes’s definition, are those

issues on which there is only one clear policy position. Examples of valence issues not included

in this study include health care and national security. The only position parties would want to

take on either of these issues is more health care or better national security. A focus on the

United States is important for American politics scholars because there is little reason to believe

studies from other countries with different party systems would have results that transfer to

American elections.

Theory

Because this thesis is mainly an investigation of prior theories, it relies heavily on pre-

established theories. As detailed earlier, much of the work relies on the foundation laid by

Downs (1957). Beyond Downs’ economic model, this thesis also takes theoretical considerations

from Simon’s (2002) model of campaign effects. Together these form a familiar picture of

spatial voting theory as applied to valence issues.

First, this thesis assumes that voters are political amateurs. Based on a sturdy base of

prior literature, voters have little information about politics and have little motivation to gain a

much greater understanding. Furthermore, voters make vote decisions by combining what

relevant considerations they have into one vote choice. When summing across considerations,

the voter weighs different considerations based on what they find to be the most salient (Simon

2002, 48).

20

In order to consider aggregate evidence, this thesis further assumes that vote choice is

independent. Since no vote causes any other vote, variance across voters is similar to variance

within voters. Likewise, much in the same way that a voter’s considerations are aggregated in

light of conflicting preferences, votes across the electorate are aggregated into one collective

group choice (Simon 2002, 49).

Furthermore, each individual considers each issue individually in its own dimension. Put

another way, a voter’s position on any given issue is independent of his position on any other

issue. Within this framework, Downs’ model of spatial voting plays its expected role by offering

single-peaked, symmetrical preferences (Simon 2002, 50).

One key distinction not made in Downs or Simon regards valence issues. In conjunction

with the uni-dimensionality mentioned before, valence issues take on a slightly difference

appearance than regular spatial issues. Whereas with traditionally spatial issues, voter utility

curves take on a bell shape, utility for valence issues takes on half-bell shapes. Take Figure 1 for

example:

21

Modeling Valence Issues

I valence

R DV

U v

Reputational Issues Performance Issues

Figure 1: Modeling Valence Issues

Figure 1 shows what a utility curve would look like for valence issue I. In this figure, all

voters occupy position V, which is the furthest point to the left. Voters occupy this position

because everyone is in favor of the same outcome, such as in the case with crime and education.

Everyone wants no crime and the best education. Thus, the utility curve peaks at the far left of

the issue space. Points R and D represent possible positions held by the Republican and

Democratic parties. In the case illustrated, the Republicans would hold a reputation advantage

over the Democrats, though this is not necessarily the case. D could be located closer to R if the

issue was something on which Democrats held a reputational advantage.

One might notice that the graph describes expected outcomes rather than policies or

policy positions. This stems from Downs’s and Simons’s assumptions of prospective voting and

amateur voters. Amateur voting cannot likely decompose complex crime or education policies,

and will thus likely depend on the reputation of party for predicting outcomes. Also, if the figure

22

represented policies, everyone would be located at the far left point because parties would pick

policies that located them near voters. A representation of this situation would make little sense.

One final note is that the figure contains two sections: reputation issues and performance

issues. Though not a formal assumption of the model, this represents an intuitive interpretation of

the utility curve. If any outcome is sufficiently bad, voters will likely vote for the party out of

office because the party in office got them into a terrible situation. This draws on Downs’

economic theory of voting. Because drawing the cutoff between performance and reputation

issues is a hazy procedure at best, this thesis will limit itself to issues that never have outcomes

in the “performance” zone of the figure.

Another important aspect of the model of valence issues misrepresented in the figure

above relates to voter concern about outcomes. As previously mentioned, voters in this model

focus on prospective outcomes as opposed to current policy positions. Implicitly, this means that

the utility curve depicted in the figure comes in part from a comparison of a voter’s current

position. Therefore, the valence issue model includes information about a voter’s environment.

Hypotheses

The model of valence issues offers several testable hypotheses concerning aggregate

voting behavior. The primary hypothesis of this analysis concerns the effects of issue ownership.

Thus, assuming issue ownership plays a significant role in voting behavior,

Hypothesis 1: In states where a voter’s condition places him away from V, vote share for

the party reputed to be better able to improve that condition will increase.

Again referencing Figure 1, any state in which objective conditions of crime or education

place a voter at any place away from V, that voter will have a higher utility from voting for a

party that will improve those conditions. Basing his evaluation of the parties on traditional issue

23

ownership expectations, he will then vote for the party he expects to handle the problem and

push him back towards V.

As stated, this hypothesis concerns only situations in which there is a deterioration of

objective conditions. Because crime and education, the focus of study, are rarely the single most

salient issues in an election, any situation in which conditions have improved would not lead to

an expectation of higher vote shares. In these situations, the salience of other issues takes

precedence in a voters’ mind as conditions of crime and education improve to tolerable levels.

This is the opposite effect of what one would expect to see when analyzing voting on economic

issues, where neither party is consistently viewed to be better at “handling” the economy

(Peltzman 1987; Petrocik 1996).

Assuming there is a demonstrable effect for issue ownership, the next question raised

concerns the sources of the issue ownership effect. Because this thesis takes advantage of

looking at issue ownership in two elections, which elections demonstrate issue ownership effects

can give information about the sources of issue ownership. Based on the assumption that

presidential elections are more candidate-centered than senatorial elections (Abbe et al. 2003):

Hypothesis 2a: If the Selective Emphasis model correctly models issue ownership,

presidential and senatorial elections will demonstrate effects in the same direction.

The preceding hypothesis relies on the use of partisanship as the driving force behind

issue ownership. If the parties are the dominant factor in determining the issue agenda, then this

should be the same across elections. There is only one head of each of the parties, and thus, there

should be some uniformity in the composition of the issue agenda. Therefore, presidential and

senatorial elections should display the same results.

24

Hypothesis 2b: If the Directional Voting model correctly models issue ownership, there

will be evidence of single-year deviation from long-term issue ownership effects.

Unlike the other two possible models, candidates in the Directional Voting model are

solely responsible for determining campaign messages. Because voters evaluate candidates based

somewhat on the issues with which the candidate concerns himself, then candidates will tailor

their message in each state to that constituency. As such, there should be conflict between

senators and president. If the two showed the same effects, that would suggest some type of party

cohesion. Furthermore, there cannot be consistent effects over time. Consistent effects over time

suggest that overall, senators and presidents enjoy the same benefits of party membership as

those who came before and those who will come after. That certainly sounds like parties provide

some durable effect, which is inconsistent with the directional voting model.

Hypothesis 2c: If the Campaign Effects model correctly models issue ownership, then

there will be sporadic evidence for any given election, but durable evidence over time.

This last hypothesis fills in the gaps between the preceding two. In the Campaign Effects

model, the parties still play a major role in promoting issues. However, candidates also select

important issues on a campaign-by-campaign basis. Thus, we should see support for issue

ownership in both elections, and this effect will not necessarily be uniform across offices or time.

Because candidates can stray from the party line while still enjoying party benefits, this model

allows for presidents to experience different effects from senators all while demonstrating a

consistent effect over time.

In light of these hypotheses, the aim of this thesis should be clear. By expanding the

analysis to consider elections over time as well as elections in individual years, this thesis seeks

to determine the nature of issue ownership effects. In addition, by comparing elections across

25

offices while maintaining the same electorate, this thesis seeks to compare the models that

explain issue ownership. Table 3A in the Appendix offers a summary of the conditions under

which the variations of Hypothesis 2 gain support.

26

CHAPTER 4

DATA AND METHODS

Data

The main analysis of this thesis employs data from a variety of sources. First, data on

elections comes from the Voting and Elections Library from Congressional Quarterly Press.

Election return data can be downloaded from http://library.cqpress.com. Data on state

demographics and educational statistics comes from the Statistical Abstract of the United States,

which can be found at www.census.gov. Crime data come from the Bureau of Justice statistics

and can be downloaded from http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/. Party platform data was coded from

the party platforms listed at the American Presidency Project (www.presidency.ucsb.edu).

Finally, data on campaign spending comes from FEC spending reports filed by the candidates.

Crime and education represent a Republican and a Democratic issue, respectively. As

mentioned above, these also both represent salient valence issues. Furthermore, neither of these

issues has ever truly reached the “performance issue” section of Figure 1, which makes them

prime candidates for testing for issue ownership effects. Crime and education are also relatively

easy to measure at the state level. Other candidates for issue ownership failed because of the

difficulty in measurement. For example, national security and social welfare are two issues

generally associated with Republicans and Democrats respectively. In both cases it is hard to

measure these variables at the state or national levels. National security is, by definition, not

confined to any state. Social welfare is a broad category with an ambiguous definition which

makes finding clear-cut measurements hard to find at the state-level.

27

The years 1980 to 2004 compose the time frame for conducting the analysis. 1980

provides a clean cut point because it was when Reagan changed the dialogue about crime

(Gottschalk 2006). The last shift prior to this occurred in 1968, which was 4 years prior to the

collection of federal campaign spending data. These data are critical in comparing results

between legislative and executive elections, and thus, 1980 provides a better cut point. 2004 acts

as a good end date because it is the last presidential election for which the demographic and

crime data needed are available.

Data showing that the public perceives that the parties have these reputations comes from

the American National Election Studies and appears later in the thesis.

Methods

Analysis of this data will take the form of an Ordinary Least Squares regression model. In

a broad sense the model will take the following form:

(1) yVote Share = α + β1xcrime + β2xeducation + ε

The dependent variable in the model, represented by yVote Share, is measured as the two-

party Republican vote share in each state. The two main independent variables, notated as xcrime

and xeducation, are objective measures of crime and education in each state. Crime is measured at

the violent crime rate (number of violent crimes per 100,000 people) in each state. Education is

measured as the per capita amount of education revenue in each state1.

Based on all the theories of issue ownership, the first independent variable for crime

should have a positive coefficient. In other words, as stated in Hypothesis 1, deterioration the

1 In the literature on educational performance, there is great debate about how to measure educational performance

(Bidwell and Kasarda 1980; Shavelson et al. 1992; Levin 1998). Other research suggests that, while it may not

accurately reflect school performance, school revenue is the standard by which legislatures and courts discuss school

performance (Hanushek 1989). As such, this thesis elects to use revenue as a proxy for performance as opposed to

test scores or graduation rates.

28

conditions of crime should lead to an increase in Republican vote share, all other things held

constant. Likewise, deterioration in education revenue should lead to in an decrease in

Republican vote share.

There are a number of control variables also included in the model. In the model

presented above, these are included in the alpha term. Controls for this model include previous

presidential vote share, state median income, population density, and racial composition. These

controls are included in the empirical model because they influence party vote share as described

further below.

Previous presidential vote share acts as a proxy for state partisanship and is measured as

the average Republican vote share over the prior two presidential elections. State median income

is measured as the constant 1980-dollar amount of the median income in each state. Population

density is measured as the number of residents for each square mile in the state. Racial

composition is measured as the percent of the state’s residents that are Caucasian and includes

those Caucasians of Hispanic origin.

Past research has shown the past party identification is a strong predictor of vote choice

(Markus and Converse 1979; Franklin and Jackson 1983). As measured above, the past

Republican presidential vote share is expected to be positively associated with the current

Republican vote share. Also, this model includes a number of socioeconomic variables that are

expected to influence partisan identification (Campbell et al. 1960; Miller and Shanks 1996). In

accordance with this research, Republicans should receive higher vote shares from whites and

the upper class when compared to minorities and the lower class. Thus, state median income and

racial composition should be positively associated with Republican vote share. Finally, this

29

research also suggests that Republicans perform worse in urban areas than rural areas. As such,

population density should demonstrate a negative correlation with Republican vote share.

The above model applies to both senatorial and presidential elections in its generic form,

though the specific model for senatorial elections differs in regards to its control variables.

Legislative elections tend to be slightly different from executive elections, especially with

regards to incumbency. Senate elections have demonstrated a long history of benefiting

incumbents (Cover 1977; Cox and Morgenstern 1993). As such, an added dummy variable for

incumbency is included. Incumbents are coded as 1 and challengers are coded as 0. In addition,

presidential incumbency does not vary by state and, accordingly, does not make the model2.

Furthermore, spending also tends to play a bigger role in legislative elections. Included in the

model is a variable for spending, and it is measured as the ratio of Republican spending to

Democratic spending in the race.

On a side note about spending in elections, there is substantial debate in the literature

surrounding the role of money in influencing election outcomes. For those arguing against the

influence of money in campaigns, spending usually signals that the incumbent feels that he might

be losing the race. Thus, increased spending would be a sign of electoral weakness (Jacobson

1978, 1990). On the other hand, other analyses have found that, while incumbent spending is less

effective than challenger spending in aggregate, incumbent spending is comparable to challenger

spending at the margins (Green and Kranso 1988, 1990). This paper sides with more recent

research into Senate elections that supports the latter argument that the value for spending by

incumbents is close to that of challengers (Gerber 1998; Moon 2006).

2 In response to recent research concerning the role of incumbency in presidential elections (Mayhew 2008), I ran a

modified version of the model presented here, only including a variable for presidential incumbency. This was

coded 1 if the candidate was of the incumbent party, and 0 otherwise. The resulting coefficient was neither

substantively nor statistically significant, and it did not significantly change the results presented here.

30

On a final note about the measurement of the variables in the model, the objective data

represents measurements taken one year prior to the election. For example, for the 1992

elections, the objective data represent crime rates and education levels from 1991. Ideally, one

would want to track candidate support and crime rate or education levels on a month-by-month

or day-to-day basis. However, data limitations force a much less desirable situation. Statistical

agencies do not usually release data for crime and education until the year following its

collection year. As such, it would not make sense to test for things like campaign effects using

data that the parties would not have until the year following the election. A candidate could not

promote data he does not yet have. This does not mean that a candidate could not campaign on

that issue, but he would likely not be able to tout how he lowered the crime rate or saved failing

schools without data to back him up. For the sake of consistency, demographic data also come

from the year preceding the election year.

31

CHAPTER 5

FINDINGS

Results

One preliminary piece of evidence about parties claiming issues is an attempt to

appropriate ownership as seen in the party platforms of each party in presidential election years.

At first glance, issue ownership suggests that parties should always emphasize issues on which

they hold an advantage in handling reputation. As such, when looking at party platforms over

time, Republicans should constantly emphasize crime as a major issue facing America and

Democrats should likely emphasize education. Figures 2 and 3 represent counts of mentions of

“crime” and “education” in each of the party’s platforms from 1980 – 2004. The raw counts are

then divided by the word count which gives the values on the y-axis.

32

Crime Mentions in Party Platforms

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004

Year

Perc

en

t o

f W

ord

s in

Pla

tfo

rm

Democrat Republican

Figure 2: Crime Mentions in Party Platforms

33

Education Mentions in Party Platforms

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.3

0.35

1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004

Year

Perc

ent W

ord

s in P

art

y P

latf

orm

Democrat

Republican

Figure 3: Education Mentions in Party Platforms

Figure 4: Democratic Advantage - Education

Difference in Education Mentions

-0.1

-0.05

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004

Year

De

mo

cra

tic

Ad

va

nta

ge

34

Figure 5: Democratic Advantage - Crime

As the figures show, the parties generally follow expectations about issues that they own.

In Figure 3, Democrats devote a larger portion of their party platform to education than

Republicans do in 6 of the 7 years. 1984 is the only year in which Republicans emphasized

education more than Democrats. Crime, on the other hand, is an issue seemingly split in two. In

all three years in which Gore was on the ticket, Democrats out-mentioned Republicans on the

crime issue. This supports earlier work that shows that the Clinton ticket was able to snag crime

away from Republicans (Holian 2004). Similar analysis was conducted using analogous words to

“crime” and “education,” specifically: “punishment,” “rehabilitation,” “teacher,” and “school,”

and the analysis produced similar results.

Following the main theories of issue ownership, these figures also represent changes in

the salience of education and crime from 1980 – 2004. The parties paid little attention to crime

prior to 1992, and mentions maxed out in 1992. In 2004, salience seemed to have dropped again.

Difference in Crime Mentions

-0.06

-0.04

-0.02

0

0.02

0.04

0.06

0.08

0.1

0.12

0.14

1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004

Year

35

Education on the other hand, seems to vary in salience from year to year. Nevertheless, there

seems to be a decline in salience of education after a peak of mentions in 1988.

In addition to studying how parties demonstrate issue ownership, public opinion data can

also provide information about perceptions of issue ownership. Following analysis pursued in

prior research (Herrnson 2008), I used ANES post-election survey data to tap issue ownership by

candidates and parties. Included in just about every ANES post-election survey are questions

about what issues the interviewee considers the most important issues facing the country. By

matching these responses with the interviewee’s vote choice, we can look for effects of issue

ownership. For example, if respondents who mention crime as a major issue facing the country

tend to vote for the Republican presidential candidate, then it would appear as though

Republicans “own” the issue of crime.

Figures 6 and 7 present the results from this analysis. Data are ANES post-election

surveys from 1980 to 2000. 2004 does not appear in the table because the “most important

problem facing the country” question was asked in a different way compared to prior years.

Column values represent the vote share, out of 1, for each party.

36

Issue Support for Presidential Candidates

Crime: 1980-2000

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000

Year

Tw

o P

art

y V

ote

Share

Republican

Democrat

Figure 6: Issue Support for Presidential Candidates 1980-2000: Crime

Issue Support for Presidential Candidates

Education: 1980-2000

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000

Years

Tw

o P

art

y V

ote

Share

Republican

Democrat

Figure 7: Issue Support for Presidential Candidates 1980-2000: Education

37

Figures 6 and 7 confirm, for the most part, traditional issue ownership expectations. With

the exception of one year, 2000, Republican presidential candidates do as well or better than

Democrats with respondents who identify law and order as an important issue facing the country.

Likewise, respondents who considered education to be one of the most important issues facing

the country voted for Democrats more than Republicans in every year with the exception of

1984.

These results also differ significantly from the party platform data presented above. Only

in 2000 did excessive mentions of crime by Democrats match with an unexpected vote share for

Democrats. In every other case, voting on crime and education appeared to move independently

of party platform mentions. For example, in 1992, Republicans experienced one of their greatest

vote shares amongst those considering crime as an important problem and yet Democrats

devoted a larger portion of their party platform to issues of crime. This suggests that either issue

ownership paradigms change slowly and may not fluctuate year to year or that, contrary to prior

research, party platforms are poor reflections of public opinion (Monroe 1983).

In addition, to compare perceived issue salience to vote share, the ANES also had

questions about perceptions of the major parties. Between 1980 and 2000, the ANES asked

respondents to identify which party could better handle the problems facing the country. By

pairing responses to these questions with the responses about issue salience, we can see voter

perceptions of handling reputation. This data is presented in Figures 8 and 9. Column values

represent the share of respondents, out of 1, naming each party as being better able to handle the

important problems facing the country. Again, 2004 is excluded because the problem was asked

in a different fashion.

38

Party Ownership

Crime: 1980-2000

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

0.9

1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000

Years

Tw

o P

art

y S

hare

Republican

Democrat

Figure 8: Which Party can Better Handle Law and Order Problems? 1980-2000

Party Ownership

Education: 1980-2000

0

0.1

0.2

0.3

0.4

0.5

0.6

0.7

0.8

1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000

Years

Tw

o P

art

y S

hare

Republican

Democrat

Figure 9: Which Party can Better Handle Education Problems? 1980-2000

39

These figures largely conform to traditional issue ownership expectations. With the

exception of 1980, Democrats always appear as better able to handle problems of education. In

every year, Republicans appear as capable as or more capable than Democrats are when

addressing problems of crime. In 1980, both Reagan and the Republican Party at large appeared

to have issue ownership of education, which is somewhat counterintuitive. This mystery grows

when considering the fact that neither the party nor Reagan maintained this ownership in the

1984 election.

When looking at Figure 8, another interesting phenomenon appears. Though Republicans

have never had less than 50% of respondents name them as the party best able to hand crime

problems, their advantage on the issue seems to be declining. When comparing 1980 to 1988 and

1988 to 1996, the Republican advantage has declined. In 1984, 1992, and 2000, Republican

support hovered around 50%. This gives the appearance of a declining advantage over time.

Beyond this simple analysis, regression analysis was also used to test the theories

presented above. Hypothesis 1 asserts that there are issue ownership effects, and to test this

theory, Model 1 was run for all presidential elections from 1980-2004. The results are presented

below (For all tables, stars represent significance values. *=p≤.05, **=p≤.01, ***=p≤.001):

40

Table 1: Presidential Races- 1980-2004 (n=350)

Estimate Std. Error t value p-value

Violent Crime -0.0071431 0.0020140 -3.547 0.000444 ***

Education Rev. -0.0140478 0.0026110 -5.380 < 0.000001 ***

Median Income 0.0005150 0.0001302 3.956 0.000093 ***

Racial Comp. -0.0478426 0.0397933 -1.202 0.230085

Partisanship 0.3956522 0.0669532 5.909 < 0.000001 ***

Pop. Density -0.0094800 0.0022287 -4.254 0.000028 ***

(Intercept) 34.6707386 5.3367540 6.497 < 0.000001 ***

Residual standard error: 8.073 on 343 degrees of freedom

Multiple R-squared: 0.344, Adjusted R-squared: 0.3325

Table 2: Senatorial Elections – 1980-2004 (n=399)


Violent Crime 0.0040183 0.0024555 1.636 0.10255

Education Rev. 0.0174983 0.0036119 4.845 0.000002 ***

Median Income -0.0002937 0.0001480 -1.985 0.04785 *

Racial Comp 0.1265916 0.0513900 2.463 0.01420 *

Partisanship 0.4284148 0.0857248 4.998 < 0.000001 ***

Pop. Density -0.0080173 0.0027584 -2.907 0.00386 **

Spending Ratio 0.0005065 0.0001200 4.219 0.000031 ***

Incumbent 13.6309734 1.1614134 11.737 < 0.000001 ***

(Intercept) 7.2331718 6.8113520 1.062 0.28893



In looking at the results, issue ownership does indeed appear to play a role in affecting

electoral outcomes. Though the directions of the coefficient are different depending on the

office, a fact addressed later, the inflation-adjusted education revenue per capita seems to have a

sizeable impact on Republican electoral fortunes. Moving one standard deviation from the mean

could increase or decrease Republican vote share by roughly 2.75 percentage points. Although

this is not a huge effect in solidly Democratic or Republican states, this kind of swing could play

a role in determining swing states or close Senate elections. Similar analysis for the violent crime

rate could sway an election by 1.7 percentage points ceteris paribus.

41

Substantively, the results above follow many of the expectations mentioned prior to

analysis. Population density and racial composition follow reference group theory expectations

of partisanship. More urban and racially diverse states tend to support Republicans less. One

extra person per square mile tends to increase Republican vote share by .008 or .009 percentage

points. Within the data, moving one standard deviation from the mean results in roughly a two

percentage-point change in vote share. Increasing the percent of the population that is white by

one percentage point increases Republican vote share by about .13 percentage points. Moving

one standard deviation in the data results in about a 1.5 percentage point shift in vote share.

Not surprisingly, partisanship and incumbency both play large parts in influencing vote

share. Incumbency over this period results in an almost 14 percentage-point advantage over the

opponent. Partisanship also translates very well. States with higher Republican vote shares in the

past tend to have higher vote shares in the present election. This effect manifests at about .4

percentage points in the present for every average percentage point in the past.

When looking at the tables above, several pieces of evidence about the hypotheses

presented in this thesis emerge. First, there is prima facie, significant evidence for Hypothesis 1.

In both cases, there is a statistically significant effect of crime or education on partisan vote

share. Both effects have similar magnitudes. However, the twist is that the effects are not

consistent across the elections. The direction of the effect changes when switching from

presidential to senatorial elections. In presidential elections, it seems that an increase in violent

crime actually helps Democratic presidents. In senatorial elections, better-funded schools

increase Republican vote share, which is also contrary to expected effects. In senatorial elections,

the variable for violent crime is not significant by conventional standards. Because the possible

42

electorate in each case is the same, this suggests that there is a candidate effect in addition to the

expected partisan effect.

However, it may also be possible that there are particularly significant elections that

switched the issue ownership paradigm. For example, as mentioned in the introduction, Bill

Clinton seemed to appropriate crime as “his” issue in the 1992 election (Holian 2004). Since

Clinton participated in nearly one third of the elections in the analysis, he may be influencing the

results in Table 1.

To get a better picture of issue ownership, the model was run for each of the between

1980 and 2004. The tables below present only significant results; results for all elections can

found in the Appendix.

Table 3: 1984 Presidential Election (n=50)


Violent Crime 0.001217 0.002799 0.435 0.6659

Education Rev. -0.02065 0.008472 -2.437 0.0190 *

Median Income -0.00009712 0.0001943 -0.500 0.6196

Racial Comp. -0.06761 0.05108 -1.324 0.1926

Partisanship 0.7254 0.08796 8.247 < 0.000001 ***

Pop. Density -0.001978 0.002972 -0.666 0.5092

(Intercept) 37.29 6.386 5.839 < 0.000001 ***



Table 4: 1992 Presidential Election (n=50)


Violent Crime -0.0041478 0.0019353 -2.143 0.0378 *

Education Rev. 0.0024224 0.0052724 0.459 0.6482

Median Income -0.0001271 0.0001243 -1.023 0.3121

Racial Comp. -0.0683110 0.0477947 -1.429 0.1602

Partisanship 0.9230224 0.0941305 9.806 < 0.000001 ***

Pop. Density -0.0008474 0.0024552 -0.345 0.7317

(Intercept) 5.7252983 7.8174842 0.732 0.4679



F-statistic: 20.99 on 6 and 43 DF, p-value: 2.539e-11

43

Table 5: 1982 Senate Election (n=32)


Violent Crime 0.01168 0.005634 2.073 0.04956 *

Education Rev. -0.01817 0.01684 -1.078 0.29199

Median Income 0.001226 0.0007392 1.659 0.11075

Racial Comp. 0.3063 0.1089 2.814 0.00984 **

Partisanship 0.4385 0.3188 1.376 0.18218

Pop. Density -0.0001250 0.006626 -0.019 0.98511

Spending Ratio -0.0005082 0.001566 -0.324 0.74854

Incumbent 14.61 2.822 5.175 < 0.000001 ***

(Intercept) -36.35 26.54 -1.369 0.18408



F-statistic: 5.947 on 8 and 23 DF, p-value: 0.0003530

Table 6: 1992 Senate Election (n=36)


Violent Crime 0.01633 0.004059 4.024 0.000416 ***

Education Rev. 0.01846 0.006216 2.969 0.006196 **

Median Income -0.0004231 0.0004174 -1.014 0.319787

Racial Comp. 0.2227 0.09874 2.256 0.032411 *

Partisanship 0.7406 0.2508 2.953 0.006452 **

Pop. Density -0.02677 0.009347 -2.863 0.008007 **

Spending Ratio 0.7825 0.3838 2.039 0.051385.

Incumbent 8.874 2.930 3.029 0.005355 **

(Intercept) -29.61 18.00 -1.645 0.111667




When looking at these results, several things stand out. First, there are only a select

number of years in which either crime or education matter in determining elections. This is

somewhat surprising considering the evidence in Figures 6-9 and Tables 1 and 2. When

comparing these results with the hypotheses presented above, evidence surfaces for Hypothesis

2c. What these results show is a consistent, within-office effect over time, though this effect may

be too small to pick up in every election. Because the results show consistency between senators,

this rules out Hypothesis 2b as a possible explanation. Candidates from the same party

44

experiencing the same effect as their compatriots suggests that there may be more to issue

ownership than just candidate strategy. As in line with the Campaign Effects model, the results

suggest that parties do hold issue ownership advantages which do lead to demonstrable electoral

effects.

Furthermore, the inconsistent results between offices rules out Hypothesis 2a as an

explanation. If parties alone dictated the issue agenda according to principles of issue ownership,

the all members of the party should experience the same effect regardless of office. However,

this is clearly not the case. In fact, concerning education revenue, Republican presidential

candidates experience the opposite effect of that experienced by Republican senatorial

candidates, though the two are similar in magnitude.

When considering the change in sign on the educational revenue coefficient between

presidential and senatorial elections, further evidence against Hypothesis 2a lies in the context of

the election. As is generally the case, mid-term elections occur in a different political context

than senatorial elections in presidential election years. With regards to issue ownership, there is

evidence that presidents offer a unique influence over the public agenda (Andrade and Young

1996). Thus, senatorial elections in mid-term elections might exhibit a different pattern of issue

ownership than those in presidential election years.

To test this possible explanation, I ran separate regressions on both types of senatorial

elections, those that take place in presidential election years and those that take place in mid-term

election years. The results appear below:

45

Table 7: Senatorial Elections Concurrent with Presidential Elections (n=203)


Violent Crime 0.0023316 0.0032774 0.711 0.477670

Education Rev. 0.0091269 0.0047909 1.905 0.058252 †

Median Income -0.0005473 0.0002151 -2.544 0.011722 *

Racial Comp 0.1816820 0.0683503 2.658 0.008514 **

Partisanship 0.4363509 0.1150157 3.794 0.000198 ***

Pop. Density -0.0045411 0.0038481 -1.180 0.239417

Spending Ratio 0.0002290 0.0001897 1.207 0.228885

Incumbent 16.4248435 1.5806398 10.391 < 0.000001 ***

(Intercept) 11.9833528 8.7480375 1.370 0.172322

Residual standard error: 10.53 on 194 degrees of freedom †=p≤.1


Table 8: Senatorial Elections in Mid-Term Election Years (n=195)


Violent Crime 0.007079 0.003592 1.971 0.050199 †

Education Rev. 0.02704 0.005420 4.989 0.000001 ***

Median Income -0.00008263 0.0002009 -0.411 0.681394

Racial Comp 0.08679 0.07512 1.155 0.249420

Partisanship 0.4583 0.1255 3.653 0.000337 ***

Pop. Density -0.01043 0.003867 -2.697 0.007644 **

Spending Ratio 0.0006973 0.0001526 4.571 0.000009 ***

Incumbent 10.96 1.657 6.616 < 0.000001 ***

(Intercept) -1.813 10.46 -0.173 0.862509

Residual standard error: 11.02 on 186 degrees of freedom †=p≤.1


Tables 7 and 8 demonstrate a significance difference between presidential election years

and mid-term election years. The main variable of interest here, Education Revenue, shows an

effect in mid-term election years almost double that of presidential election years. This

diminished influence demonstrates that presidents shape the issue agenda for senators too.

Because issue ownership effects do not appear constant within the parties, these tables present

more evidence against Hypothesis 2a.

Another conclusion one can draw from these results is that issue ownership effects are

not a given in any election. At times, Republicans benefit from owning crime as an issue, as in

the 1992 Senate election. At other times, Democrats benefit from owning crime as an issue, as in

46

the 1992 Presidential election. This difference could be due to the influence of the president or it

may be a result of how the public evaluates each office. At any rate, any further studies of issue

ownership or agenda setting should at least consider the difference between the offices.

In addition, these results suggest a little about how the issue ownership process works.

When looking at the 1992 election in particular, there is evidence that supports that Clinton was

able to gain a vote advantage by emphasizing crime. On the other hand, Republican senators in

states with higher crime increased their vote share. This suggests, in accordance with the

Campaign Effects model, that the Presidential campaign was able to “make” crime a salient

issue. Furthermore, Republicans not facing Clinton possibly gained a vote-share advantage

because of increased salience of crime.

When comparing the results of single years with those of the combined years, an

interesting trend occurs. In each year in which the education revenue and violent crime

coefficients are statistically reliable, their results roughly match the direction and magnitude of

corresponding coefficients in the over-time models. This suggests an intra-office consistency that

furthers our understanding about the complex interaction between the branches. It is possible that

these effects result from difference in how the public views each office. The difference in

direction of issue coefficients suggests that the public evaluates each offices performance

according to different standards.

The single year results conflict, however, with some of the predictions made on the trends

seen in Figures 2-9. On the one hand, the figures help predict weird results in the 1984 and 1992

presidential elections. In 1984, it appears education was a Republican issue, and, in 1992, it

appears crime was a Republican issue. On the other hand, the general trends that appear in those

47

figures do not accurately predict the effects on senatorial races, or the backwards sign on the

crime variable in Table 1.

There are a number of possible explanations of this, some of which I have already

discussed. The data presented in Figures 2-9 may not capture differences between the different

offices. Party present their platforms at presidential nominating conventions; this explains why

the figures were better at predicting presidential results. As mentioned before, further analysis of

issues and agenda setting should consider senatorial and presidential elections as very different.

In terms of the error in prediction in Table 1, part of the problem could originate in the years

analyzed. As seen in Figure 5, the Democratic Party platform in the 1990s and 2000 focused on

crime as a major issue. Since those three years constitute almost half of the years analyzed, it is

reasonable to suggest that the sample of years considered influenced the error in the outcome.

Contributions and Further Analysis

Perhaps the most basic result this evidence presents is support for Hypothesis 1. Both

across time and in certain elections, issue ownership plays a role in determining election

outcomes. Though it might not be the greatest predictor of elections, the results show that future

research should incorporate issue ownership when analyzing electoral influences. This effect,

while demonstrated in other countries, likewise applies to American elections as well.

One of the benefits of this analysis is the ability to compare and contrast the various

models of issue ownership. Based on the evidence above, Hypotheses 2a and 2b can be rejected.

Both the Selective Emphasis model and Directional Theory model make predictions about the

effects of issue ownership that do not pan out. Rather, the evidence supports Hypothesis 2c, the

Selective Emphasis model. A small durable effect combined with variable influence in any given

year suggests that both the parties and candidates play significant roles in issue ownership.

48

In addition, by comparing two different elections across the same electorate provides

further support for the Selective Emphasis Model. In any given election, presidents or senators

can benefit from issue ownership. This suggests that the benefits from issue ownership come

from neither the candidates nor the parties, but rather both. Whereas prior research considered

only presidential or senatorial elections, both were missing information gleaned from comparing

the two.

One concern about issue ownership gleaned from these results relates to the durability of

issue handling reputations. As mentioned before, the results seem to show that the benefits of

issue ownership may shift from year to year. If this is the case, then there is very little sense in

which the parties own issues at all. Crime is almost universally mentioned in the literature as a

Republican issue, and yet the regression results suggest that Democrats benefit at times

too(Budge and Farlie 1983; Petrocik 1996; Herrnson and Patterson 2000; Abbe et al. 2003;

Petrocik et al. 2003; Holian 2004; Herrnson 2008). This makes issue ownership more like a pre-

election status quo that campaigns can shift to suit their desires.

Finally, due to the employ of valence issues, the effects do seemed tied to issue

ownership and not spatial voting. As mentioned earlier, there is a danger that issue ownership

could be a fancy word for spatial voting in cases like abortion. However, because valence issues

lack a traditional spatial direction, these results likely do not represent dressed up spatial voting,

but rather issue ownership.

Discussion

Having established a basis of support for issue ownership, there remains a question of

where issue ownership studies should go in the future. First, issue ownership studies should

expand beyond the issues presented here. This thesis incorporates only two issues, and further

49

studies should incorporate both valence and spatial issues. Second, further research could

possibly expand to House elections or statewide elections. These two election-types are

somewhat hard to study though because the information level of voters continues to decrease the

more local the election. This could lead to greater issue ownership effects, due to a lack of clarity

about policy positions, or lesser issue ownership effects, due to things like straight ticket voting.

In addition, the research design above could improve as more data become available. As

mentioned above, paring data about crime or educational performance to tracking polls on a

month-by-month basis would allow for a more direct test of issue ownership. In addition, as time

goes by, this comparison would benefit from data on the 2008 election. Data availability limited

the above analysis, and future data collection will allow for analysis that is more expansive.

With the emergence of the Campaign Effects model as the front runner for issue

ownership models, future research might also link campaign events to issue ownership. Issue

ownership may provide a tool for explaining some campaign choices as well as campaign

successes and failures. To take issue ownership one step further, if candidates constantly

campaign as the literature suggests, issue ownership may explain some behavior in office (Cook

2002). Finally, there may be an opportunity to reevaluate the role of campaigns in elections

through a lens of issue ownership.

The preceding provides evidence for the electoral effects of issue ownership. Building

upon and improving the prior literature, the thesis argues for the Selective Emphasis model as the

definitive model of issue ownership. The evidence presented above provides evidence in favor of

the argument. Finally, the results suggest several future applications for issue ownership in

electoral studies.

50

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54

APPENDIX

Table 1A: Theories of Issue Ownership

Selective Emphasis Directional Voting Campaign Effects

Information

Problem Solution

Voters perform Cost-

Benefit analysis

based on issues

owned by parties

Voters compare the

direction and intensity

of issue preferences

with candidates

Voters consider

issue “handling”

reputations of

parties

Role of Parties Primary, main source

of issue groupings

Secondary; act as

information cues for

candidates

Mixed; source of

issue “handling”

reputation

Role of

Candidates

Secondary; agent of

the party, probably

more the case in

multiparty systems

Primary; key sources

of issue bundle used

by voters in decisional

calculus

Mixed; responsible

for highlighting

issues owned by the

party through

campaigns

Source (Budge and Farlie

1983)

(Rabinowitz and

MacDonald 1989)

(Petrocik 1996)

Table 2A: Conditions for Hypotheses Support

Hypothesis Necessary & Sufficient Conditions

2a: Selective Emphasis

(Party Influence)

Constant effects across offices

2b: Directional Voting

(Candidate Influence)

No constant effects over time

Only demonstrated effects in presidential contests

2c: Campaign Effects

(Mixed Influence)

Some effects

Consistent effects over time or between offices

55

Table 3A: Presidential Races- 1980- 2000 (n=350)


Violent Crime -0.0071431 0.0020140 -3.547 0.000444 ***

Education Rev. -0.0140478 0.0026110 -5.380 < 0.000001 ***

Median Income 0.0005150 0.0001302 3.956 0.000093 ***

Racial Comp. -0.0478426 0.0397933 -1.202 0.230085

Partisanship 0.3956522 0.0669532 5.909 < 0.000001 ***

Pop. Density -0.0094800 0.0022287 -4.254 0.000028 ***

(Intercept) 34.6707386 5.3367540 6.497 < 0.000001 ***



Table 4A: Senate Races – 1980- 2000 (n=390)


Violent Crime 0.0040183 0.0024555 1.636 0.10255

Education Rev. 0.0174983 0.0036119 4.845 0.000002 ***

Median Income -0.0002937 0.0001480 -1.985 0.04785 *

Racial Comp 0.1265916 0.0513900 2.463 0.01420 *

Partisanship 0.4284148 0.0857248 4.998 < 0.000001 ***

Pop. Density -0.0080173 0.0027584 -2.907 0.00386 **

Spending Ratio 0.0005065 0.0001200 4.219 0.000031 ***

Incumbent 13.6309734 1.1614134 11.737 < 0.000001 ***

(Intercept) 7.2331718 6.8113520 1.062 0.28893



Table 5A: 1980 Senate Election (n=34)


(Intercept) 4.0863503 44.4228071 0.092 0.9274

Partisanship 0.2430381 0.5474293 0.444 0.6609

incumbent 7.0977827 8.9527806 0.793 0.4354

Median Income -0.0008987 0.0012056 -0.745 0.4629

Racial Comp. 0.4005071 0.1748856 2.290 0.0307 *

Pop. Density -0.0016089 0.0155597 -0.103 0.9185

Education Rev. 0.0349798 0.0262260 1.334 0.1943

Spending Ratio 2.1691817 1.8895720 1.148 0.2618

Violent Crime -0.0022235 0.0090516 -0.246 0.8080




56



(Intercept) -3.635e+01 2.654e+01 -1.369 0.18408

Partisanship 4.385e-01 3.188e-01 1.376 0.18218

Incumbent 1.461e+01 2.822e+00 5.175 3.02e-05 ***

Median Income 1.226e-03 7.392e-04 1.659 0.11075

Racial Comp. 3.063e-01 1.089e-01 2.814 0.00984 **

Pop. Density -1.250e-04 6.626e-03 -0.019 0.98511

Education Rev. -1.817e-02 1.684e-02 -1.078 0.29199

Spending Ratio -5.082e-04 1.566e-03 -0.324 0.74854

Violent Crime 1.168e-02 5.634e-03 2.073 0.04956 *






(Intercept) 18.2689569 33.0437747 0.553 0.585

Partisanship 0.4029166 0.3788382 1.064 0.298

incumbent 23.7043247 4.6664782 5.080 3.4e-05 ***

Median Income -0.0012192 0.0011803 -1.033 0.312

Racial Comp. 0.1612068 0.3044651 0.529 0.601

Pop. Density -0.0013323 0.0118592 -0.112 0.911

Education Rev. 0.0311576 0.0312080 0.998 0.328

Spending Ratio 0.0002179 0.0004427 0.492 0.627

Violent Crime 0.0012102 0.0172960 0.070 0.945






(Intercept) -1.088e+01 1.548e+01 -0.703 0.488840

Partisanship 4.092e-01 2.625e-01 1.559 0.131573

incumbent 1.384e+01 3.061e+00 4.521 0.000129 ***

Median Income 5.845e-04 5.019e-04 1.165 0.255196

Racial Comp. 1.883e-01 1.316e-01 1.431 0.164824

Pop. Density -2.055e-02 1.353e-02 -1.520 0.141120

Education Rev. -7.829e-03 9.180e-03 -0.853 0.401838

Spending Ratio 1.992e-04 1.301e-04 1.531 0.138439

Violent Crime 1.244e-02 6.086e-03 2.044 0.051670.




57



(Intercept) 32.1968674 28.9431140 1.112 0.2775

Partisanship 0.1687568 0.3315867 0.509 0.6156

incumbent 16.3618827 4.9914776 3.278 0.0033 **

Median Income -0.0005169 0.0007039 -0.734 0.4701

Racial Comp. 0.1797267 0.1970659 0.912 0.3712

Pop. Density 0.0043047 0.0103077 0.418 0.6801

Education Rev. -0.0071040 0.0114268 -0.622 0.5403

Spending Ratio 0.2331739 0.4851266 0.481 0.6353

Violent Crime -0.0007903 0.0082681 -0.096 0.9247






(Intercept) -31.382465 44.203722 -0.710 0.485931

Partisanship 0.629223 0.360438 1.746 0.096205.

incumbent 19.768904 4.301515 4.596 0.000175 ***

Median Income 0.001293 0.000866 1.493 0.151113

Racial Comp. 0.001789 0.421932 0.004 0.996659

Pop. Density -0.003251 0.010965 -0.296 0.769918

Education Rev. 0.008346 0.011236 0.743 0.466246

Spending Ratio 0.004595 0.012261 0.375 0.711750

Violent Crime 0.006265 0.014392 0.435 0.667987




58



(Intercept) -2.961e+01 1.800e+01 -1.645 0.111667

Partisanship 7.406e-01 2.508e-01 2.953 0.006452 **

incumbent 8.874e+00 2.930e+00 3.029 0.005355 **

Median Income -4.231e-04 4.174e-04 -1.014 0.319787

Racial Comp. 2.227e-01 9.874e-02 2.256 0.032411 *

Pop. Density -2.677e-02 9.347e-03 -2.863 0.008007 **

Education Rev. 1.846e-02 6.216e-03 2.969 0.006196 **

Spending Ratio 7.825e-01 3.838e-01 2.039 0.051385.

Violent Crime 1.633e-02 4.059e-03 4.024 0.000416 ***






(Intercept) -2.210e+01 2.780e+01 -0.795 0.4336

Partisanship 6.832e-01 3.764e-01 1.815 0.0806.

incumbent 1.912e+01 4.006e+00 4.774 5.6e-05 ***

Median Income 2.970e-04 5.776e-04 0.514 0.6113

Racial Comp. 2.655e-01 1.542e-01 1.722 0.0966.

Pop. Density -2.292e-03 7.456e-03 -0.307 0.7609

Education Rev. -2.931e-03 1.055e-02 -0.278 0.7833


Violent Crime 2.455e-03 6.402e-03 0.384 0.7043






(Intercept) -8.943e+01 4.491e+01 -1.991 0.057491.

Partisanship 1.602e+00 4.020e-01 3.986 0.000514 ***

incumbent 1.790e+01 3.930e+00 4.556 0.000118 ***

Median Income -8.261e-04 7.306e-04 -1.131 0.268953

Racial Comp. 7.885e-01 3.347e-01 2.356 0.026620 *

Pop. Density 1.287e-02 8.478e-03 1.519 0.141383

Education Rev. -9.230e-03 9.925e-03 -0.930 0.361288

Spending Ratio 4.498e-03 2.443e-03 1.841 0.077524.

Violent Crime 9.712e-03 1.133e-02 0.857 0.399464




59



(Intercept) -4.211e+01 2.465e+01 -1.708 0.09997.

Partisanship 9.976e-01 3.412e-01 2.924 0.00724 **

incumbent 8.244e+00 3.547e+00 2.324 0.02852 *

Median Income -4.794e-05 7.277e-04 -0.066 0.94801

Racial Comp. 2.675e-01 1.483e-01 1.804 0.08334.

Pop. Density -2.506e-02 1.293e-02 -1.937 0.06408.

Education Rev. 1.224e-02 6.728e-03 1.819 0.08096.

Spending Ratio 5.442e-03 3.419e-02 0.159 0.87480

Violent Crime 1.296e-02 7.518e-03 1.723 0.09718.






(Intercept) -3.910e+01 2.385e+01 -1.639 0.113704

Partisanship 1.226e+00 2.982e-01 4.111 0.000372 ***

incumbent 1.733e+01 3.591e+00 4.827 5.83e-05 ***

Median Income -1.779e-05 5.509e-04 -0.032 0.974497

Racial Comp. 8.642e-02 1.272e-01 0.680 0.503055

Pop. Density -3.322e-03 6.957e-03 -0.478 0.637099

Education Rev. 1.132e-02 7.439e-03 1.522 0.140621


Violent Crime 1.397e-02 8.732e-03 1.599 0.122318




60



(Intercept) -1.697e+01 3.989e+01 -0.425 0.674737

Partisanship 1.307e+00 3.081e-01 4.242 0.000334 ***

incumbent -4.230e+00 3.791e+00 -1.116 0.276486

Median Income 2.088e-04 8.907e-04 0.234 0.816788

Racial Comp. -6.604e-02 3.279e-01 -0.201 0.842248

Pop. Density -1.301e-02 9.815e-03 -1.326 0.198492

Education Rev. 9.714e-03 9.853e-03 0.986 0.334925

Spending Ratio 1.409e-03 3.217e-04 4.380 0.000238 ***

Violent Crime -5.106e-03 1.723e-02 -0.296 0.769712




Table 17A: 1980 Presidential Election (n=50)


(Intercept) -4.811e+01 1.401e+01 -3.434 0.001329 **

Partisanship 1.141e+00 1.623e-01 7.034 1.15e-08 ***

Median Income 7.077e-04 4.010e-04 1.765 0.084696.

Racial Comp. 2.586e-01 6.532e-02 3.959 0.000278 ***

Pop. Density -4.629e-03 3.563e-03 -1.299 0.200778

Education Rev. 6.772e-03 8.835e-03 0.767 0.447549

Violent Crime 1.030e-03 3.436e-03 0.300 0.765750






(Intercept) 3.729e+01 6.386e+00 5.839 6.26e-07 ***

Partisanship 7.254e-01 8.796e-02 8.247 2.12e-10 ***

Median Income -9.712e-05 1.943e-04 -0.500 0.6196

Racial Comp. -6.761e-02 5.108e-02 -1.324 0.1926

Pop. Density -1.978e-03 2.972e-03 -0.666 0.5092

Education Rev. -2.065e-02 8.472e-03 -2.437 0.0190 *

Violent Crime 1.217e-03 2.799e-03 0.435 0.6659




61



(Intercept) 27.8337176 7.7913094 3.572 0.000887 ***

Partisanship 0.6971784 0.1018274 6.847 2.15e-08 ***

Median Income -0.0001467 0.0001297 -1.131 0.264335

Racial Comp. -0.1035464 0.0566282 -1.829 0.074412.

Pop. Density 0.0016027 0.0033522 0.478 0.634994

Education Rev. -0.0023965 0.0033531 -0.715 0.478644

Violent Crime 0.0022690 0.0025970 0.874 0.387121






(Intercept) 5.7252983 7.8174842 0.732 0.4679

Partisanship 0.9230224 0.0941305 9.806 1.56e-12 ***

Median Income -0.0001271 0.0001243 -1.023 0.3121

Racial Comp. -0.0683110 0.0477947 -1.429 0.1602

Pop. Density -0.0008474 0.0024552 -0.345 0.7317

Education Rev. 0.0024224 0.0052724 0.459 0.6482

Violent Crime -0.0041478 0.0019353 -2.143 0.0378 *






(Intercept) -1.376e+01 7.499e+00 -1.835 0.073496.

Partisanship 1.071e+00 9.410e-02 11.379 1.48e-14 ***

Median Income 4.522e-05 1.183e-04 0.382 0.704258

Racial Comp. 4.565e-02 4.661e-02 0.979 0.332888

Pop. Density -9.945e-03 2.393e-03 -4.156 0.000151 ***

Education Rev. 2.297e-03 5.391e-03 0.426 0.672140

Violent Crime 6.558e-04 1.985e-03 0.330 0.742722




62



(Intercept) 6.157e+00 5.147e+00 1.196 0.238179

Partisanship 1.068e+00 6.074e-02 17.579 < 2e-16 ***

Median Income -2.316e-04 7.271e-05 -3.185 0.002690 **

Racial Comp. 5.324e-02 3.181e-02 1.674 0.101479

Pop. Density -6.975e-03 1.768e-03 -3.944 0.000291 ***

Education Rev. 5.713e-03 3.239e-03 1.764 0.084873.

Violent Crime -3.407e-03 1.987e-03 -1.714 0.093684.



F-statistic: 106.6 on 6 and 43 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16



(Intercept) 1.774e+01 4.445e+00 3.991 0.000252 ***

Partisanship 1.011e+00 4.794e-02 21.085 < 2e-16 ***

Median Income -1.515e-04 5.012e-05 -3.022 0.004221 **

Racial Comp. -5.834e-02 2.683e-02 -2.175 0.035195 *

Pop. Density 3.079e-03 1.530e-03 2.012 0.050457.

Education Rev. -3.863e-03 3.058e-03 -1.263 0.213374

Violent Crime -2.314e-03 1.875e-03 -1.234 0.223885



F-statistic: 133.3 on 6 and 43 DF, p-value: < 2.2e-16

63

Table25A: Alternative Party Platform Searches

Percent of Platform Word Count Expressed by Word

Crime Education

Year Democrat Repub. Difference Year Democrat Repub. Difference

1980 0.018334 0.0260431 -0.00770848 1980 0.233112 0.089704 0.143408

1984 0.04565 0.087565 -0.0419060 1984 0.153094 0.197022 -0.04392

1988 0.04133 0.049655 -0.0083157 1988 0.310045 0.187586 0.122459

1992 0.17968 0.080599 0.09908381 1992 0.215620 0.192738 0.022881

1996 0.20913 0.133012 0.07612375 1996 0.236653 0.161771 0.074882

2000 0.19405 0.069206 0.12484835 2000 0.206440 0.138412 0.068028

2004 0.04506 0.048284 -0.0032168 2004 0.169004 0.156925 0.012079

Punishment Teachers

1980 0 0.005787 -0.0057873 1980 0.026192 0.014468 0.011723

1984 0.00537 0.007297 -0.0019254 1984 0.013429 0.040134 -0.02670

1988 0 0.019310 -0.0193103 1988 0.082678 0.016551 0.066127

1992 0.03593 0.014017 0.02191937 1992 0.023957 0.024530 -0.000572

1996 0.04402 0.035949 0.00807937 1996 0.082553 0.017974 0.064579

2000 0.01651 0.008650 0.00786450 2000 0.148637 0.046137 0.102500

2004 0.01690 0.014485 0.00241505 2004 0.101402 0.050698 0.050703

Rehab School

1980 0.01833 0.028811 0.01446843 1980 0.062861 0.066554 -0.003692

1984 0.04565 0.008057 0.00364857 1984 0.064460 0.131348 -0.066887

1988 0.04133 0 0.01655172 1988 0.103348 0.102068 0.001279

1992 0.17968 0 0.00350434 1992 0.1677048 0.164704 0.003000

1996 0.20913 0 0 1996 0.2586681 0.150986 0.107681

2000 0.19405 0.008257 0.00865076 2000 0.4004954 0.141295 0.259199

2004 0.04506 0 0.00241423 2004 0.2028054 0.156925 0.045880

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