13:15 - 15:30
Friday-Panel
Chair/s:
Mert Moral
Discussant/s:
Hanno Hilbig
Meeting Room A

Mert Moral
Vanishing Swing Voters? On the Effect of Political Polarization on Electoral Volatility

Marius Saeltzer, Mike Cowburn
Primary Roots of Partisan Polarization: The Effects of Primaries on Intra-Campaign Positional Shifts in Congressional Elections

Andreas Goldberg, Jonas Lefevere
Does polarization moderate the electoral impact of issue positions and competence? A comparative study on the 2019 EP elections

Davide Morisi
Biased but moderate voters: How information depolarizes political attitudes
Primary Roots of Partisan Polarization: The Effects of Primaries on Intra-Campaign Positional Shifts in Congressional Elections
Marius Saeltzer 1, Mike Cowburn 2
1 University Mannheim
2 Free University of Berlin

Whether congressional primaries are a source of polarization in the U.S. Congress remains contested. Central to claims that primaries polarize is the strategic positioning dilemma, which contends that candidates must satisfy ideologically extreme partisans in the primary before facing a comparatively moderate general electorate. We test whether candidates position themselves differently across primary and general elections using a unique dataset of positions over time. We apply an original scaling method based on candidates’ language on Twitter to estimate the positions of over 800 candidates in the 2020 primaries for the US House of Representatives and Senate over time. We show the validity of these positions by correlating them with NOMINATE (r > 0.9) where possible. We use a interrupted time series design on dynamic ideal points to show that the presence of a primary election caused artificial partisanship among Democrats. Democrats who did not become the party’s nominee moderated significantly following the primary, indicating strategic positioning for perceived electoral benefit during the nomination process. For Republicans, we observe no centrifugal effect of primaries, nor moderation among nominees or losing candidates after the nomination process.