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Winning May Not Be Everything, But It's More than We Thought: Presidential Party Activists in 1980

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  • Stone, Walter J.
  • Abramowitz, Alan I.

Abstract

Recent studies of party activists in the United States have shown an influx of issue-oriented activists into the presidential nominating process since the 1960s. These new activists are described as dogmatic ideologues more interested in promoting their issue concerns than in nominating an electable candidate. Based on our survey of 17,628 delegates attending party conventions in 11 states during the 1980 Democratic and Republican presidential nomination campaigns, we show that activists in both parties weighed electability more heavily than ideology in choosing a party nominee. This finding is in sharp contrast to a strong preference among these same activists for ideological purity over electability when they are presented with questions, typical of past studies, that pose the trade-off only in very general and abstract terms. A partial replication using data from the CPS survey of delegates to the 1972 Democratic national convention supports our findings and leads us to assert that previous studies have underestimated the concern of contemporary party activists with winning.

Suggested Citation

  • Stone, Walter J. & Abramowitz, Alan I., 1983. "Winning May Not Be Everything, But It's More than We Thought: Presidential Party Activists in 1980," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 77(4), pages 945-956, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:77:y:1983:i:04:p:945-956_25
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    Cited by:

    1. Hummel, Patrick, 2013. "Candidate strategies in primaries and general elections with candidates of heterogeneous quality," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 85-102.
    2. Hummel, Patrick, 2010. "Flip-flopping from primaries to general elections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 1020-1027, December.
    3. Jordan Kujala, 2020. "Donors, Primary Elections, and Polarization in the United States," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(3), pages 587-602, July.
    4. James Adams & Samuel Merrill, 2014. "Candidates’ policy strategies in primary elections: does strategic voting by the primary electorate matter?," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 160(1), pages 7-24, July.
    5. Larry M. Bartels, 2016. "Failure to Converge," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 667(1), pages 143-165, September.

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