Voting with the Crowd: Do Single Issues Drive Partisanship?

We examine whether survey data supports the anecdotal evidence which suggests that group association impacts the individual’s stated beliefs. Specifically, we examine whether a rise in the relative importance of a single issue, i.e., national security, blurs the traditional importance of socio-economic variables in determining an electorate’s political party association. Further we examine whether such blurring occurs across the responses to questions outside the scope of this single issue. We find that in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks on September 11th, 2001, the relative importance of national security rose in United States’ electorate and reduced the relative importance of socio-economic variables in determining the electorate’s political association and for both security and non-security issues.