Tribal Politics or Discerning Voters? Party and Policy in Local Elections

Abstract

How do voters react to local candidates who share their policy views but not their party identification, and vice versa? This paper presents findings from a survey experiment that cross-pressured respondents to choose between a co-partisan candidate who does not share their policy views (on housing and homelessness) and an opposing party candidate with some ideological affinity. The majority of respondents chose party over policy, indicating they would vote for co-partisans even if the candidate from the opposing party is closer to their policy positions. However, significant minorities defected and in some circumstances most did. Weak partisans, those with stronger policy views, and those who viewed the issues as highly salient were more likely to defect from their party when cross-pressured. Our findings support revising the expectation that partisanship always takes precedence over policy views and reinforces the view that partisanship may operate differently at the local level.