Sam Fuller, "Symbolic and Operational Ideology in Models of Spatial Voting: Evidence from U.S. Presidential Elections 1972–2024"
Do voters use symbolic or operational ideology—or some mixture of both—to determine their vote? This paper attempts to answer this long running question by estimating the ideological positions of respondents and presidential candidates using the American National Election Study from 1972 to 2024. We estimate operational and symbolic ideology using alpha-NOMINATE and hierarchical Bayesian Aldrich-McKelvey scaling, respectively. Our analysis examines how the relationship between these two dimensions, and partisanship, evolves through the era of party polarization. We also examine how symbolic and operational ideology predict presidential vote choice and compare the explanatory power to both partisanship and partisan affect. In doing so, the paper evaluates if spatial models of voting are still useful for understanding electoral behavior in a polarized party system. Finally, our paper contributes to ongoing discussions of ideological constraint, partisan sorting, and the relationship between ideology and partisanship in the American electorate.