Journal ArticleDOI
Beyond the Running Tally: Partisan Bias in Political Perceptions
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TLDR
This paper examined the impact of long-term partisan loyalties on perceptions of specific political figures and events and concluded that partisan bias in political perceptions plays a crucial role in perpetuating and reinforcing sharp differences in opinion between Democrats and Republicans.Abstract:
I examine the impact of long-term partisan loyalties on perceptions of specific political figures and events. In contrast to the notion of partisanship as a simple “running tally” of political assessments, I show that party identification is a pervasive dynamic force shaping citizens' perceptions of, and reactions to, the political world. My analysis employs panel data to isolate the impact of partisan bias in the context of a Bayesian model of opinion change; I also present more straightforward evidence of contrasts in Democrats' and Republicans' perceptions of “objective” politically relevant events. I conclude that partisan bias in political perceptions plays a crucial role in perpetuating and reinforcing sharp differences in opinion between Democrats and Republicans. This conclusion handsomely validates the emphasis placed by the authors of The American Voter on “the role of enduring partisan commitments in shaping attitudes toward political objects.”read more
Citations
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Dissertation
Conflicted voters in presidential elections
TL;DR: This paper examined the electoral behavior of weak partisans and leaning independents when partisanship and ideology/issue preferences are in conflict, and found that voters, predominantly conflicted Republicans, were likely to defect from their preferred party candidate as a function of their contradictory issue preferences in 1996 and 2000, but not 2004.
Journal ArticleDOI
U.S. public support for biofuels tax credits: Cost frames, local fuel prices, and the moderating influence of partisanship
TL;DR: The authors examined the influence of competing cost arguments and spatial variation in ZIP-code level gasoline prices on Americans' support for federal tax credits to promote biofuels and found evidence of a significant partisan divide in policy preferences.
Journal ArticleDOI
Assessing the value of state legislative experience and legislative professionalism in national election performance, 1974–2010
TL;DR: In this article, state legislative experience and chamber professionalism have been shown to benefit state legislators as they decide and prepare to run for national office in American Congressional elections, and what are the effects of these two factors on national election performance?
Book ChapterDOI
Political Choice in a Polarized America
TL;DR: The authors of as mentioned in this paper argue that voters generally try to support the party or candidate that best matches their orientations, however, voters' ability to successfully do so varies as a function of the signals sent by elites.
Journal ArticleDOI
Social penumbras predict political attitudes.
Andrew Gelman,Yotam Margalit +1 more
TL;DR: In this paper, the characteristics of the penumbranchs of politically relevant groups such as gay people, the unemployed, or recent immigrants were studied and found significant differences in the penumbbras of various social groups, even ones of similar size.
References
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Book
An Economic Theory of Democracy
TL;DR: Downs presents a rational calculus of voting that has inspired much of the later work on voting and turnout as discussed by the authors, particularly significant was his conclusion that a rational voter should almost never bother to vote.
Book
The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion
TL;DR: Zaller as discussed by the authors developed a comprehensive theory to explain how people acquire political information from elites and the mass media and convert it into political preferences, and applied this theory to the dynamics of public opinion on a broad range of subjects, including domestic and foreign policy, trust in government, racial equality, and presidential approval, as well as voting behaviour in U.S. House, Senate and presidential elections.
Journal ArticleDOI
The American Voter
Journal ArticleDOI
The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion.
TL;DR: The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion by John Zaller (1992) as discussed by the authors is a model of mass opinion formation that offers readers an introduction to the prevailing theory of opinion formation.