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6 November 2006

Coming home on election day? Republicans, Democrats, and their partisan networks

There are some surveys suggesting a shift toward Republicans in the waning hours of the Congressional campaign. While one has to be careful about interpreting shifts, which are often stated in terms of a gap between the parties or candidates, because the gap is subject to twice the sampling error reported in a survey, i.e., +/- 4 becomes +/- 8, resulting in illusory swings, there is some scholarly basis for believing that Republicans would “come home.” In particular, following from work by Robert Huckfeldt and John Sprague and collaborators, discussions about politics likely are most active very close to the election. These discussions essentially activate the influence of ones milieu. Because partisans tend to have confidants who are like themselves, this tends to mean that wavering partisans will return to their partisan ways come election day. In this case, my understanding is that Republicans were wavering more than Democrats, and as a result a return to the fold would naturally create some shift to Republicans. Keys to watch, then, are (1) how independents vote (my understanding is that they are tilting heavily toward Democrats); (2) relative turnout of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents; and (3) the geography of these shifts—e.g., with respect to the House, a shift toward Republicans would not matter much in the South (except for a couple of seats), but a shift in the Northeast and Midwest would matter a lot. Regarding the first point, independents do tend to turn out at lower rates than partisans. Diana Mutz has done some fascinating work on the immobilizing effects of being exposed to cross-cutting pressures. An interesting question is whether, if Independents are tilting heavily toward the Democrats, they will be exposed to fewer cross-cutting pressures (as compared to if they were splitting down the middle), and thus likely turn out at higher than expected rates.

In a matter of hours, we should know...

Posted by David Lazer at November 6, 2006 10:40 PM

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