Partisan/Party Identification (PID)

  • How much are you voting for a candidate vs a party

Explaining American Vote Choice

  • Columbia school (Early 1950s)

    • Long term social factors; Socio economic status, race/ethnicity

    • Prediction: Low vote volatility (bc these social factors do not vary much)

  • Michigan school (Early 1960s)

    • Medium to short term factors

    • PID: Pyschological attachment to a party that is stable over time — often comes from parents

    • to be considered PID, stability of PID for at least one election campaign period

  • PID and candidate evaluations as most important predictors of US vote choice (Issue positions less important)

  • Voting identity is different than vote choice

    • You can identify with a particular party but not neccessarily vote for that party every time (eg. conservative who doesn’t like Polievre, doesn’t vote for Polievre)

  • Spacial voting theory still around

Independent Variables

  • Ethnicity, race religion, PID ect.

PID Implications

  • PID key to partisan competition

    • Concept of a voter base: a stable set of voters (identifiers) who are pre-disposed to vote for a particular party

    • Presumably, if a PID is weak, then campaign/context effects will matter more

  • Reinforcing PID (In USA)

    • 2 Party system

    • Same 2 parties federally and at state level

    • Concurrent elections

    • Voter registration by party

    • Primary elections

    • Having multiparty system could enhance opportunity for choice and have more people be more open minded to different political ideas, also in Canada we have different parties provincially vs federally, so you need to choose from a different set of parties which weakens PID

    • Americans are asked for their voter/party ID, which isn’t a thing in Canada

Canadian PID: Same same but different?

  • Early studies of Canadian PID:

    • Volatility (Not stable enough)

    • Later: Some volatility actually due to measurement error/question wording

    • Inconsistency across levels (eg. Prov NDP and federal Liberal)

  • PID does exist, but it’s more complex; Inconsistencies in PID

  • PID in Canada is there but very weak

Belanger & Stephenson, 2010: Parties and partisans

  • Does PID vary across party? Why?

    • Intensity (self-evaluated strength)

    • Loyalty (Consistency btwn partisanship and vote choice)

    • Stability (Short term shift before and after a campaign)

    • CES 1993-2006

Less Ideology Means Weaker Partisans?

  • Expect brokerage parties to have weak parisanship

    • PC

    • Liberals

  • Expect more ideological parties to have strong partisanship

    • NDP

    • BQ

    • Reform

Stability within Elections

  • Percentage of stable partisans (partisans who are still w same party until end of election period) vs election year from 1993-2006

    • PC has a problem w stability relative to other parties (ranges from 50-60%)

    • Liberals lose most partisanship after 1997

    • Big drop in 2004 in reform alliance , NDP and Bloque Quebecoise