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“Party Effort and Its Impact on the Vote”*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

William J. Crotty
William J. Crotty*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
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Abstract

The effect of party activities on the vote, while a fundamentally important question for any understanding of party operations, has received little research attention. This neglect has come about partly because the analysis is difficult to conceptualize and because the data have to be generated principally by the investigator. In addition, structural variables relevant to the nature of the environment in which the parties compete must be introduced into the analysis, and the canvas must be broad enough to permit comparative assessments within a controlled research design.

The present study sets out to deal with precisely these problems. It analyzes the contribution of the competing parties' efforts to the final vote in elections for five levels of office, from local to national, in 100 North Carolina counties.

Multiple correlation analysis was used to judge the association between the final vote and three sets of independent variables: demographic, institutional (specifically the extent of competition between the contending parties), and political, with emphasis on those associated with campaigning. The variance explained by each is described, as well as the total contribution of all to understanding the outcome of the election.

The variables proved quite successful in explaining the final vote. The strength of the associations increased as one proceeded from the local to the national level, and party output measures proved more impressive contributors to explaining the votes in competitive as against non-competitive areas. Overall, the variables relating to party effort were found to add significantly to the under-standing of the election outcomes.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 65 , Issue 2 , June 1971 , pp. 439 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1971

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Footnotes

*

I wish to thank Robert Albritton for his help in this analysis.

References

1 Katz, Daniel and Eldersveld, Samuel J., “The Impact of Local Party Activity Upon the Electorate,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 25 (Spring, 1961), pp. 1–24 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cutright, Phillips and Rossi, Peter, “Grass Roots Politicians and the Vote,” American Sociological Review, 63 (April, 1958), pp. 171–179 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cutright, and Rossi, , “Party Organization in Primary Elections,” American Journal of Sociology, 64 (November, 1958), pp. 262–269 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Rossi, and Cutright, , “The Impact of Party Organization in an Industrial Setting,” in Janowitz, Morris, ed., Community Political Systems (New York: Free Press, 1961), pp. 81–116 Google Scholar. Other studies related to the problem include: Cutright, , “Measuring the Impact of Local Party Activity Upon the General Election Vote,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 27 (Fall, 1963), pp. 372–386 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Cutright, , “Activities of Precinct Committeemen in Partisan and Nonpartisan Communities,” Western Political Quarterly, 17 (March, 1964), pp. 93–108 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wolfinger, Raymond E., “The Influence of Precinct Work on Voting Behavior,” Public Opinion Quarterly, 27 (Fall, 1963), pp. 387–398 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Eldersveld, , “Experimental Propaganda Techniques and Voting Behavior,” American Political Science Review, 50 (March, 1956), pp. 154–165 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 The intercorrelations among the variables were as follows:

Cutright and Rossi, “Grass Roots Politicians and the Vote,” op. cit., p. 173.

3 The patronage appointees in the Democratic party did perform better. The Republicans received no local patronage. An item was substituted in the Republican leader index for this dimension of the Democratic index on “the role of the committeeman.” Cutright and Rossi, “Grass Roots Politicians and the Vote,” op. cit., pp. 177-78.

4 The Democratic primary contests analyzed were those for County Surveyor, two County Commissioner races, and City Judge. The Republican primary contests were for U.S. Congressman, County Commissioner, Mayor, and City Judge. The races were chosen on the basis of two criteria: 1) the official party divided its support, and 2) there were at least two candidates seeking the nomination. Cutright and Rossi, “Grass Roots Politicians and the Vote,” op. cit., p. 204.

5 The one exception is the City Judge's race in the Democratic primary. Here a candidate's “notoriety” scored first, for which no explanation is advanced. See notes 6 and 7 below on controlling variables in the research design and the vagaries implicit in primary elections.

6 The authors find, for example, that the social attributes employed to predict the primary vote in the presidential election are not as effective in the primary races. No effort is made to isolate other variables that might be better related, or to gauge party coalition support among electors in relation to the vote. The activity “input” variables probably pick up a large degree of shared variance, but whether this comes primarily from the social characteristics of the voting groups, the extent of inter-party competition in the precincts, or other organizational variables cannot be determined. For example, there is a need to control for the relative party position in the precinct. Quite different types of behavior could be expected from political parties in dominant, competitive, or minority status vis-à-vis their opponents. Later in their investigation, the authors do introduce two factors of conceivable importance—incumbency and “friends and neighbors” voting in primary elections—and find one (“friends and neighbors” voting) to be of significance in explaining their results. In similar analyses of party impact, the conscientious structuring and control of the research setting would appear to be particularly crucial factors contributing to the acceptance of the study's findings. Cutright and Rossi, “Grass Roots Politicians and the Vote,” op. cit.

7 There is no way to tell if the specific races chosen for analysis are even fair representatives of primary races in the community, much less the voting coalitions that emerge in the general elections. In a primary race, the voting coalitions that form may have a great deal to do with the personality of the candidate, issues specific to the race, symbolic association with a candidate (through ethnic and/or religious name identification or “old family” status in the locality, as examples), the amount of money placed in advertising (media, mail circulars, and throwaways), the highly selective nature of the electorate that votes in these elections, the quality of objective information available in the local press and other media, and a host of additional factors that could result in unusual voting alignments. When the protective umbrella of party label is neutralized, as it is in primary races, other variables, ranging from the obvious to the particularized, can substantially modify the voting patterns that result. One of the first to argue the idiosyncracies of primaries was Key, V. O. Jr., in his American State Politics (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1956)Google Scholar and Southern Politics (New York: A. A. Knopf, 1949)Google ScholarPubMed. Other studies which speak to aspects of the problem include: Ranney, Austin and Epstein, Leon D., “The Two Electorates: Voters and Non-Voters in a Wisconsin Primary,” Journal of Politics, 28 (August, 1966), pp. 598–616 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ranney, , “The Representativeness of Primary Electorates,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 12 (May, 1968), pp. 224–238 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Turner, Julius, “Primary Elections as the Alternative to Party Competition in ‘Safe’ Districts,” Journal of Politics, 15 (May, 1953), pp. 197–210 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Standing, William H. and Robinson, James A., “Inter-Party Competition and Primary Contesting: The Case of Indiana,” American Political Science Review, 52 (December, 1958), pp. 1066–1077 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Rossi and Cutright, “The Impact of Party Organization in an Industrial Setting,” op. cit.

9 This presentation does not account for the full range of the Katz and Eldersveld analysis. The study included interviews with a total of 596 respondents drawn from the 87 precincts in the sample. The interview data were employed to control for a “breakage” or “clustering” effect as it influenced the vote. For example, where blue collar workers were heavily concentrated, the predicted vote increased; where they were substantially less intensively located, their support for the Democratic candidate for president declined sharply. Still, strong party leadership, in this case Democratic, meant a 21 percent increase in the party vote with occupation controlled. Katz and Eldersveld, op. cit., p. 15.

The survey information is further developed to assess the voter's awareness of party leaders and their activities, the relationship of party identification with the vote, the political information of the citizen, the perceived differences between the parties, and the other social groups affecting the voter's, decision. The respondents showed a limited awareness of party activity and personnel, possibly in part because the survey was conducted several months after the election.

The leadership data are fully developed in Eldersveld, Samuel J., Political Parties: A Behavioral Analysis (Skokie, Ill: Rand McNally, 1964)Google Scholar.

10 Here is where the conventional literature on organizations could prove helpful as a source of indicators against which to measure the development of the party structure. The assumption would be that the porous nature of the party would result in something considerably less effective in mobilizing and focussing its resources than business, military, or service (hospitals, schools, etc.) organizations. Such criteria, however, do not represent the relevant test. The comparative arrangement of the parties along the dimensions should be correlated with an “objective” criterion of party success, the vote in general election races. Then the organizational emphasis that best achieves the specified end could be mapped out, as well as the social and political conditions under which such arrangements emerge. Such assessments could provide the basis for the comparative explorations of party structures and operations in varying environments.

Discussions relevant to this point include: Anderson, Lee F., “Organizational Theory and the Study of State and Local Parties,” in Crotty, W. J., ed., Approaches to the Study of Party Organization (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 1968), pp. 375–403 Google Scholar; Udy, Stanley H. Jr., “The Comparative Analysis of Organizations,” (pp. 678–709)Google Scholar and Schlesinger, Joseph A., “Political Party Organization” (pp. 764–801)Google Scholar, both in March, James G., ed., Handbook of Organizations (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1965)Google Scholar; and Crotty, William J., “Political Parties Research,” in Haas, Michael and Kariel, Henry S., eds., Approaches to the Study of Political Science (Scranton: Chandler, 1970), pp. 267–322 Google Scholar. In an unpublished paper (“Local Party Organization: The Caplow Model—A Study of Three Counties” [Evanston: Department of Political Science, North-western University, 1967]Google Scholar), George Antunes investigated the relevance of standard organizational measures, in this case Hemphill's Group Dimension Questionnaire, in examining the “vertical integration” patterns of the parties in three Illinois counties. The results were ambivalent, due in part at least to a series of constrictions built into the research design. The exploratory nature of the study, nonetheless, is well in line with the broader emphasis being argued here.

11 Katz and Eldersveld, op. cit., p. 12. See Cutright's explanation of the “majority effect” acting as an influence on the differences found which he argues are actually comparable. “Measuring the Impact of Local Party Activity Upon the General Election Vote,” op. cit., pp. 383-384.

12 An introduction to the study and the data collection can be found in William J. Crotty, “The Party Organization and Its Activities,” Approaches to the Study of Party Organization, op. cit., pp. 247-306. The present study is close in spirit, although significant differences exist in the conceptual design, to the emphasis on political factors and their relevance for explaining “deviant,” as determined by social indicators, voting patterns in Indiana counties over time as reported in Key, V. O. Jr., and Munger, Frank, “Social Determinism and Electoral Decision: The Case of Indiana,” in Burdick, Eugene and Brodbeck, Arthur J., eds., American Voting Behavior (Glencoe: The Free Press, 1959), pp. 281–299 Google Scholar.

13 Partial correlations isolating the relative contribution of the most important independent variables, intercorrelations among demographic, party competition, and election outcome variables, assumptions underlying the structuring of this aspect of the analysis and related commentaries on the findings and the model implicit in the analysis are included in the afterword. Significance tests are included in each of the tables. An addition to the debate on the utility of tests of significance in such analyses as the present is Winch, Robert F. and Campbell, Donald T., “Proof? No. Evidence? Yes. The Significance of Tests of Significance,” The American Sociologist, 4 (May, 1969), pp. 140–143 Google Scholar.

14 These nine variables for each of the two parties included: campaign activities; time spent on the job by chairmen in the presidential and gubenatorial election year (1960); time spent by chairmen in the off-year election (1962); the amount of money spent by chairmen in the two election years; the amount of patronage distributed by chairmen; the percentage of precincts in a county maintaining record files; the number of precincts in a county actively organized; and the election day activities engaged in by the parties.

15 The gubernatorial vote was used because the office was competitive statewide. The total division of the two-part vote was 54% Democratic, 46% Republican. Also, and most importantly, the governorship is an office of direct importance to the county and state parties. The presidential election—the one other competitive race statewide—was also close, but it could have reflected emotional ties, broad national party and candidate appeals, and economic and campaign considerations not related to the state or county party efforts.

16 For these 25 counties, the multiple R and variance accounted for are as follows:

Correlations are not significant at the .05 level.

17 The party organizational and activity variables included in this analysis are the same as above, except that patronage has been omitted because of the inability of the minority Republican party to receive virtually any of these positions from any source, public or private.

18 V. O. Key, Jr. Southern Politics, op. cit. On the demographic variables more generally, see also: Spengler, Joseph J., “Demographic and Economic Change in the South, 1940–1960,” in Sindler, Allan P., ed., Change in the Contemporary South (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1963), pp. 26–63 Google Scholar; Matthews, Donald R. and Prothro, James W., Negroes and the New Southern Politics (New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, 1966)Google Scholar, and the correlations and analysis reported in the related article by Matthews, and Prothro, , “Social and Economic Factors and Negro Voter Registration in the South,” American Political Science Review, 57 (March, 1963), pp. 24–44 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Nicholls, William H., “The South as a Developing Area,” in Leiserson, Avery, ed., The American South in the 1960's (New York: Praeger, 1964), pp. 22–40 Google Scholar.

19 The research on this point is plentiful. See: Strong, Donald S., Urban Republicanism in the South (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1960)Google Scholar; Strong, , The 1952 Presidential Election in the South (University, Ala.: Bureau of Public Administration, 1955)Google Scholar; Heard, Alexander, A Two-Party South? (Chape Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1952)Google Scholar; Ransone, Coleman B. Jr., “Political Leadership in the Governor's Office,” (pp. 197–220)Google Scholar and Weeks, O. Douglas, “The South in National Politics” (pp. 221–240)Google Scholar, both in Leiserson, op. cit.; Cosman, Bernard, “Presidential Republicanism in the South, 1960,” Journal of Politics, 24 (May, 1960), pp. 303–322 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Steamer, Robert J., “Southern Disaffection with the National Democratic Party” (pp. 150–173)Google Scholar, Strong, Donald S., “Durable Republicanism in the South” (pp. 174–194)Google Scholar, and Converse, Philip E., “A Major Political Realignment in the South?” (pp. 195–222)Google Scholar, all in Sindler, op. cit.

The Goldwater presidential vote in the South presented exceptions to this pattern. Consult: Cosman, Bernard, Five States for Goldwater (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1967)Google Scholar; Cosman, Bernard and Huckshorn, Robert J., eds., Republican Politics: The 1964 Campaign and Its Aftermath for the Party (New York: Praeger, 1968)Google Scholar; Burnham, Walter Dean, “American Voting Behavior and the 1964 Election,” Midwest Journal of Political Science, 12 (February, 1968), pp. 1–40 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Converse, Philip E., Clausen, Aage R., and Miller, Warren E., “Electoral Myth and Reality: The 1964 Election,” American Political Science Review, 59 (June, 1965), pp. 321–336 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Jones, Charles O., “The 1964 Presidential Election—Further Adventures in Wonderland,” in Herzberg, Donald G., ed., American Government Annual, 1965-1966 (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965), pp. 1–30 Google Scholar.

20 See Key, Southern Politics, op. cit., ch. 10; Heard, op. cit.; and Fleer, Jack D., North Carolina Politics (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968)Google Scholar.

21 This problem is explored to an extent in Crotty, “The Party Organization and Its Activities,” op. cit.

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