A Voting Behavior Approach To Split-Ticket Voting in 1952

• Author: Daniel M. Ogden
• Published date: 01 September 1958
• Date: 01 September 1958
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/106591295801100304
• Subject Matter: Articles

481

A

VOTING

BEHAVIOR

APPROACH

TO

SPLIT-TICKET

VOTING

IN

1952*

DANIEL

M.

OGDEN,

JR.

State

College

of

Washington

OW

LITTLE

WE

actually

know

about

the

split-ticket

voter

and

t t

why

he

casts

his

ballot

as

he

does

has

been

acutely

re-emphasized

JL

-L.

by

the

outcome

of

the

general

election

of

1956

in

the

United

States.

The

re-election

of

President

Eisenhower

by

a

larger

margin

than

in

1952

with

the

simultaneous

retention

of

Democratic

control

of

Congress

marked

the

further

extension

of

a

trend

apparent

in

the

1952

results.

The

1956

splitting

pattern

was

not

confined

to

the

national

level,

how-

ever.

Many

examples

of

voter

selectivity

can

be

advanced,

but

few

prob-

ably

more

extreme

than

that

of

the

State

of

Washington.

There

President

Eisenhower

won

an

easy

victory.

With

him,

all

six

of

the

Congressional

Districts

returned

their

Republican

incumbents.

But

at

the

same

time,

Democratic

United

States

Senator

Warren

G.

Magnuson

crushed

Arthur

B.

Langlie

by

an

avalanche

unequalled

since

the

high

tide

of

the

New

Deal.

It

should

be

remembered,

moreover,

that

Langlie

was

completing

his

third

term

as

governor

and

had

been

hand-picked

by

the

President

to

aid

in

the

Republican

drive

to

retake the

Senate.

To

further

emphasize

their

inde-

pendence,

Washington

voters

then

proceeded

to

re-elect

the

Democratic

Congressman-at-Large,

to

put

Democrats

in

every

state-wide

partisan

office,

and

to

hand

Democrats

a

safe

majority

in

both

houses

of

the

state

legislature.

Survey

research

offers

a

special

tool

to

study

these

phenomena.

Fortu-

nately,

parallel

nation-wide

election

surveys

were

conducted

in

1952

and

1956

by

the

Survey

Research Center

of

the

University

of

Michigan

and

from

the

data

collected

studies

are

now

being

made.

They

disclose

that

in

1952

one-third

and

in

1956

two-fifths

of

the

voters

split

their

tickets.

In

explaining

split-ticket

voting,

two

principal analysis

bases

have

been

used

heretofore

with

the

available

survey

data.

One

is

a

motivational

ap-

proach,

especially

developed

by

Angus

Campbell

and

Warren

E.

Miller,

which

uses

the

voter’s

responses

on

attitude

questions

such

as

party

identifi-

cation,

candidate

orientation,

and

issues

orientation,

or

interest

in

the

elec-

tion

campaign,

as

the

point

of

departure

from

which

to

analyze

voting

behavior

patterns

and

other

voters

responses.

The

second

method

of

analysis

is

a

voting

behavior

approach

which

takes

the

voter’s

responses

to

questions

about

how

he

cast

his

ballot

as

the

* This

analysis

is

based

on

data

from

a

national

sample

survey

conducted

by

the

Survey

Research

Center,

University

of

Michigan,

under

the

sponsorship

of

the

Political

Be-

havior

Committee

of

the

Social

Science

Research

Council.

While

the

author

is

grate,

ful

to

the

Center

and

the

Committee

for

access

to

the

data,

neither the

Center

nor

the

Committee

bears

any

responsibility

for

this

analysis.