Political Schizophrenics? Factors Affecting Aggregate Partisan Choice at the Local Versus National Level

• Author: Jessica Trounstine
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X17733800
• Published date: 01 January 2018
• Date: 01 January 2018
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X17733800

American Politics Research

2018, Vol. 46(1) 26 –46

© The Author(s) 2017

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X17733800

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Article

Political Schizophrenics?

Factors Affecting

Aggregate Partisan

Choice at the Local

Versus National Level

Jessica Trounstine1

Abstract

In a sample of 12 states across all regions of the United States, I find that one

of every three counties supports a different party for president than for its

local legislature. I use a unique data set containing partisan affiliations of county

councillors to analyze contexts that might lead voters to choose different

parties at different levels of government. I find support for three explanations

of representational splits: incomplete realignment, local electoral factors, and

differentials in party strength. This article takes a step toward understanding

how parties and partisan identities operate in a federal system.

Keywords

representation, county, incumbency, political parties

In a popular account of the recent dramatic trend of political segregation, Bill

Bishop (2008) explains that Americans now experience a “politics so polar-

ized that . . . elections are no longer just contests over policies, but bitter

choices between ways of life” (p. 14). Given work by scholars like Lakoff

(1996) and Hetherington and Weiler (2009) indicating tremendous division

1University of California, Merced, CA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jessica Trounstine, School of Social Sciences, Humanities, and Arts, University of California,

Merced, 5200 North Lake Road, Merced, CA 95343, USA.

Email: jessica@trounstine.com

733800APRXXX10.1177/1532673X17733800American Politics ResearchTrounstine

research-article2017

Trounstine 27

between Republican and Democratic identifiers, as well as Green, Palmquist,

and Schickler’s (2002) research showing that partisan identification should

be understood as a “a distinct and enduring psychological orientation,” (p.

32) it would seem that partisan loyalties (and divides) run deep. Indeed, in

recent elections, ticket splitting has declined to the lowest levels in 30 years

(Kimball, 2005) and majorities of individual Democrats and Republicans

report having profoundly negative views of the other party (Pew, 2016). But

most studies of partisan divides rely on an exclusively national view of the

world. At lower levels of government, the political reality is considerably

more complex. In a sample of 12 states, across all regions of the United

States, I find that approximately one out of every three counties selects dif-

ferent parties at the local and national levels—even in places that voted for

presidential nominees by a landslide. In this article, I explore why.

This is not a new question. Scholars of Southern politics have noted the

tendency for at least half a century. V.O. Key (1984/1949) described a pecu-

liar kind of partisan, “indigenous to the South,” who votes Democratic in

local elections and for the Republican presidential nominee; a “political

schizophrenic” in Key’s eyes (p. 278). Was he right to think of such behavior

as an indication of illness? Or can other explanations help us to understand

preferences for different parties across levels of government as rational (and

perhaps enduring)? To what extent does such splitting even occur? I take a

step toward answering these questions using a new data set consisting of

county council partisan affiliations and presidential vote returns.

There are a range of possible reasons that we might see representational

splits across levels of government—only some of which point toward Key’s

conclusion. If, for instance, voters have well-formed preferences about

national-level politics but essentially flip coins in local elections we would be

quite likely to see representational splits and also to conclude that voters are

irrational. But perhaps voters actually prefer Democratic (Republican) repre-

sentatives for county government and Republican (Democratic) presidents as

a result of their policy positions. Given that many national-level debates are

irrelevant at the local level, preferences for different parties at different levels

are not inconceivable.

Such reasoning could have important implications for the study of elec-

tions. Perhaps, as scholars found for state-level elites and voters in the 1960s

and 70s, selecting representatives from a different party at the local level

indicates that voters have multiple party identifications (Hadley, 1985;

Jennings & Niemi, 1966; Niemi, Wright, & Powell, 1987). If so, this implies

that we need to develop an understanding of how policy preferences map

onto party labels at the local level (and how and when they come to be

related). Are Democratic county officials more likely to promote public