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Regular Voters, Marginal Voters and the Electoral Effects ofTurnout

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2015

Anthony Fowler
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Abstract

How do marginal voters differ from regular voters? This article develops amethod for comparing the partisan preferences of regular voters to thosemarginal voters whose turnout decisions are influenced by exogenous factorsand applies it to two sources of variation in turnout in the UnitedStates—weather and election timing. In both cases, marginal voters are over20 percentage points more supportive of the Democratic Party than regularvoters—a significant divide. The findings suggest that the expansion orcontraction of the electorate can have important consequences. Moreover, thefindings suggest that election results do not always reflect the preferencesof the citizenry, because the marginal citizens who may stay home havesystematically different preferences than those who participate. Finally,the methods developed in the article may enable future researchers tocompare regular and marginal voters on many different dimensions and in manydifferent electoral settings.

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Type
Original Articles
Information
Political Science Research and Methods , Volume 3 , Issue 2 , May 2015 , pp. 205 - 219
Copyright
Copyright © The European Political Science Association 2014 

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Footnotes

Anthony Fowler is an Assistant Professor in the Harris School ofPublic Policy Studies at the University of Chicago, 1155 East 60thSt., Room 165, Chicago, IL 60637 (anthony.fowler@uchicago.edu). Thanksto Jim Alt, Steve Ansolabehere, Dan Carpenter, Gloria Chao, Ryan Enos,Bernard Fraga, Andy Hall, Eitan Hersh, Gabe Lenz, Michael Martinez andJim Snyder for helpful comments.

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