The Macro Sort of the State Electorates

• Published date: 01 June 2014
• Author: Gerald C. Wright,Nathaniel Birkhead
• Date: 01 June 2014
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912914522130
• Subject Matter: Articles

Political Research Quarterly

2014, Vol. 67(2) 426 –439

© 2014 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912914522130

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Article

The relationship between partisanship and ideological

self-identification has changed quite substantially over

the last several decades. The political parties in the first

half of the twentieth century were organized largely along

group lines and were ideologically heterogeneous. This is

no longer the case; after the 1960s and 1970s, the parties

have organized primarily along ideological, rather than

social, cleavages (Abramowitz 2010). Several scholars,

often relying on data from the American National Election

Studies, have demonstrated that the contemporary parties

now enjoy a greater alignment of partisan and ideological

identifications (Abramowitz 2010; Hetherington 2001;

Levendusky 2009).

This aligning of arguably the two most important ele-

ments of voter decision making has a number of impor-

tant consequences for the character of U.S. elections.

With fewer voters conflicted by partisanship and ideo-

logical preferences, we have seen decreases in split ticket

voting, including a substantial increase in levels of voting

for the same party for both president and members of

Congress (Hetherington 2001; Levendusky 2009). The

growing congruence between party and ideological iden-

tification, frequently referred to as “sorting” or “partisan

sorting,” has important implications for a number of

aspects in political behavior, from parties changing their

campaign strategy as they make more overt appeals to the

base, to the electorate failing to punish candidates for

ideologically extreme voting behavior (Bafumi and

Shapiro 2009).

At the individual level, this can be seen in the CBS/New

York Times polls we use for the current analysis. The cor-

relation between party and ideological identification in

1977 was a very low .16, but as the parties began

differentiating themselves, citizens began adapting their

issue positions and/or partisanship to better suit the pro-

file of party elites.1 The relationship between party and

ideology has strengthened considerably over time, to a

correlation of .46 in 2011.

A similar pattern has emerged at the macro level,

where we can also see a greater consistency in the corre-

spondence between partisanship and ideology among the

state electorates. Where thirty years ago there was an

absence of a relationship between state ideology and state

partisanship, today, there is an unmistakable robust posi-

tive relationship between the two. Aggregating these

same survey data to the state level (roughly by decade),

there was almost no relationship between aggregate state

ideology and state partisanship in the 1980s (r = .11); the

relationship increased to average out at r = .29 during the

1990s with a clear shaping up of partisanship and ideol-

ogy in the most recent period (2001–2011) with the cor-

relation growing to a strong r = .67. We should note that

this was not only a matter of the Southern realignment but

was rather a broad trend across the country of state elec-

torates adapting their ideology and partisanship in

response to elites.2

What has caused this pattern of increasing congruence

of partisanship and ideology at the state level? At the

522130PRQXXX10.1177/1065912914522130Political Research QuarterlyWright and Birkhead

research-article2014

The Macro Sort of the State Electorates

Gerald C. Wright1 and Nathaniel Birkhead2

Abstract

Individual-level studies of partisan and ideological change find that individuals generally adjust their ideological

preferences to match their partisan affiliation. In examining this process among the state electorates, we find that

contrary to these studies, states have adjusted their partisanship to match their ideology. In addition, we use a

measure of state elite ideology to show that state parties have a role in the character of the partisan sort of the states.

These results are consistent with political explanations of party strategy and rational mass responses for the character

of macro-political change in the states over the last half century.

Keywords

public opinion, state ideology, state partisanship, party polarization

1Indiana University, Bloomington, USA

2Kansas State University, Manhattan, USA

Corresponding Author:

Gerald C. Wright, Indiana University, 1100 E. 7th Street Bloomington,

IN 47404, USA.

Email: wright1@indiana.edu