Why Americans Split Their Tickets: Campaigns, Competition, and Divided Government

by Barry C. Burden, David C. Kimball

Overview

Why do some voters split their ballots, selecting a Republican for one office and a Democrat for another? Why do voters often choose one party to control the White House while the other controls the Congress? Barry Burden and David Kimball address these fundamental puzzles of American elections by explaining the causes of divided government and debunking the myth that voters prefer the division of power over one-party control. Why Americans Split Their Tickets links recent declines in ticket-splitting to sharpening policy differences between parties and demonstrates why candidates' ideological positions still matter in American elections.

"Burden and Kimball have given us the most careful and thorough analysis of split-ticket voting yet. It won't settle all of the arguments about the origins of ticket splitting and divided government, but these arguments will now be much better informed. Why Americans Split Their Tickets is essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the major trends in U.S. electoral politics of the past several decades."
-Gary Jacobson, University of California, San Diego

"When voters split their tickets or produce divided government, it is common to attribute the outcome as a strategic verdict or a demand for partisan balance. Burden and Kimball strongly challenge such claims. With a thorough and deft use of statistics, they portray ticket-splitting as a by-product of the separate circumstances that drive the outcomes of the different electoral contests. This will be the book to be reckoned with on the matter of ticket splitting."
-Robert Erikson, Columbia University

"[Burden and Kimball] offset the expansive statistical analysis by delving into the historical circumstances and results of recent campaigns and elections. ... [They] make a scholarly and informative contribution to the understanding of the voting habits of the American electorate-and the resulting composition of American government."
-Shant Mesrobian, NationalJournal.com

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780472089840
Publisher:	University of Michigan Press
Publication date:	03/16/2004
Pages:	216
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Barry C. Burden is Associate Professor of Government at Harvard University.

David C. Kimball is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Missouri, St. Louis.

Read an Excerpt

In late 1995 and early 1996, Democratic President Bill Clinton engaged in tense negotiations with Republican congressional leaders in an effort to produce a balanced federal budget. While the negotiations generated considerable acrimony on both sides, they did not yield a long-term budget agreement. In fact, the federal government shut down for nearly 30 days between November 1995 and January 1996 when negotiators failed to agree on short-term resolutions to continue funding the government. A divided national government did not help matters. The budget battle revealed stark philosophical differences between Republicans and Democrats over budget priorities and the role of the federal government. The negotiations also had a stop-and-go quality, as each party pulled away from the bargaining table at different points during the process, each time professing its good faith while heaping blame on the other side.

The government shutdowns, partisan bickering and brinkmanship, blame avoidance, and elected officials' failure to reach an agreement on an important national problem clearly did not sit well with American citizens. Public approval of Congress and its leaders sunch to new depths at te end of 1995. And while conventional wisdom may hold that the budget standoff enhanced Clinton's stature at the expense of the Republicans, the president's approval ratings also dipped during the budget dispute. One national survey taken in December 1995 found that a plurality believed that continued divided government would be worse than would be unified government under either party. When the president and Congress agreed to pass temporary continuing resolutions in January 1996 that would keep the government open through the November election, both sides proclaimed that the American electorate would have to decide which party better reflected the country's spending and revenue priorities. The implication was that the budget stalemenate would motivate votes to choose sides in the upcoming election.

Nevertheless, less than ten months later, American voters maintained the same pattern of divided government by reelecting President Clinton and returning Republican majorities to the House and Senate. Clinton won reelection by a larger margin than he had garnered in 1992 at the same time that the Republican Party gained two seats in the U.S. Senate. In fact, all of the major players in the budget talks of 1995-96 (with the exception of Bob Dole, who resigned from his Senate seat to run against Clinton) retained their positions after the Nov

ember 1996 elections.

Why would voters choose the same divided government configuration again after it seemed to fail so miserably in the winter of 1995-96? Do voters prefer divided government and policy stalemate? No less than an authority than Bill Clinton has remarked that "a lot of the time in our history the American people would prefer having a president of one party and the Congress the other." The mainstream press offered similar explanations for the 1996 elections, concluding that the outcome was a mandate from the voters for bipartisanship and compromise in Washington.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
I Contemporary American Politics and Divided Government	1
II Explaining Divided Voter Behavior	17
III Measuring Ticket Splitting	41
IV President-House Ticket Splitting from 1952 to 2000	67
V Midterm Elections and Divided Government	105
VI Splitting the Senate	127
VII Conclusion and Implications	157
Notes	171
References	183
Index	199

Editorial Reviews

". . . the authors offset the expansive statistical analysis by delving into the historical circumstances and results of recent campaigns and elections. . . . [The book] certainly makes a scholarly and informative contribution to the understanding of the voting habits of the American electorate—and the resulting composition of American government."
—Shant Mesrobian, NationalJournal.com, April 18, 2003

NationalJournal.com - Shant Mesrobian

". . . should be in the collection of every political scientist interested in electoral behavior and should be required reading in graduate courses on electoral behavior."
—Perspectives on Politics

Perspectives on Politics - Sean Q Kelly

"When voters split their tickets or produce divided government, it is common to attribute the outcome as a strategic verdict or a demand for partisan balance. Burden and Kimball strongly challenge such claims. With a thorough and deft use of statistics, they portray ticket-splitting as a by-product of the separate circumstances that drive the outcomes of the different electoral contests. This will be the book to be reckoned with on the matter of ticket splitting."
—Robert Erikson, Columbia University

Robert Erikson

". . . the most careful and thorough analysis of split-ticket voting yet. It won't settle all of the arguments about the origins of ticket splitting and divided government, but these arguments will now be much better informed. . . . [E]ssential reading for anyone interested in understanding the major trends in U.S. electoral politics of the past several decades."
—Gary Jacobson, University of California, San Diego

Gary Jacobson