The Partisan Geographies of Sincere Crossover Voting Behavior: Evidence from North Carolina

Abstract

A great deal of interdisciplinary literature suggests that although the general motivation to vote is complex, it can be partially explained by a multitude of psychological and contextual factors, including local geographic patterns. I extend this observation to one particular type of voting behavior: sincere crossover voting, or voting for a candidate outside of one's own political affiliation, in a general election. Using a replicable methodological approach that incorporates partisan spatial segregation and exposure as predictors into statistical models of crossover voting behavior for a selected U.S. election, I produce evidence to suggest that the spatial arrangement of partisans influences crossover behavior in the study area, although not uniformly for members of the two major American political parties.

众多的跨领域文献主张, 儘管投票的一般动机很复杂, 但可透过一系列的心理和脉络因素部分解释之, 包含在地的地理模式。我将此一观察延伸至一种特定的投票行为类别: 在大选中衷心投票给其他政党, 抑或投票给自身政治倾向之外的候选人。我运用可复製的方法论取径, 纳入政党支持者的空间隔离与暴露, 做为选定的美国选举中跨党投票行为的统计模型预测指标, 以生产证据支持以下论点: 政党支持者的空间安排, 影响了研究区域中的跨政党投票行为, 儘管对美国两大主要政党的成员来说并不一致。

Una gran parte de la literatura interdisciplinaria sugiere que aunque la motivación general para votar es muy compleja, puede explicarse parcialmente por una multitud de factores psicológicos y contextuales, inclusive por patrones geográficos locales. Aplico esta observación a un tipo particular de conducta electoral: el voto de opinión sincero, o voto por un candidato no perteneciente a la propia afiliación política del votante, en una elección general. Utilizando un enfoque metodológico replicable que incorpore la segregación espacial partidista y la exposición como elementos predictivos en modelos estadísticos de conducta electoral de opinión para una elección seleccionada en los EE.UU., genero la evidencia necesaria para sugerir que el esquema espacial partidista influye en la conducta de opinión electoral en el área de estudio, aunque no de manera uniforme para miembros de los dos principales partidos políticos norteamericanos.

Key Words::

• electoral geography
• partisanship
• political geography
• spatial segregation
• voting

关键词::

• 选举地理
• 党派支持
• 政治地理
• 空间隔离
• 投票。

Palabras clave::

• geografía electoral
• partidismo
• geografía política
• segregación espacial
• voto

Notes

¹Insofar as the case studied in this article is an American election, this section draws primarily on U.S. voting literature. Readers are encouraged to consult Warf and Lieb (2011) for a contemporary overview of non-U.S. (as well as U.S.) research in electoral geography.

²Conceptually, as segregation increases, exposure should decrease, although not necessarily by the same magnitude.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Russell C. Weaver

RUSSELL C. WEAVER is a Visiting Professor in the MS GIS Program at the University of Redlands, 1200 E. Colton Ave., P.O. Box 3080, Lewis Hall Room 126, Redlands, CA 92373. E-mail: [email protected]. His research programs explore questions of urban change and decline from an evolutionary perspective and investigate spatial processes that explain electoral outcomes and group voting behavior.