Background research on Utah’s caucus-convention systemThe news reports a proposed ballot measure to reform Utah’s nominating system.
This might be a good time to remind readers of an excellent report by the non-partisan Utah Foundation about a year ago. The report’s author, Morgan Lyon Cotti, published a guest post on our blog summarizing the report. The full report is at the Utah Foundation’s website.
Context for Sen. Osmond’s proposed rules changesBills were introduced later and passed faster in 2012. It seems Sen. Osmond wants to reverse this trend.
The news reports that Sen. Aaron Osmond wants to change the legislature’s rules to ban so-called “boxcar” bills, thereby increasing transparency in the legislative process. I’ve posted research here before that might be relevant to this proposal. First, though, some context.
The Utah Legislature has several hoops it must jump through to enact a new proposal into law. Some are based in Utah’s Constitution; those cannot be changed without an amendment. Others are based in legislative rules, which the Legislature adopts through its standard legislative process, and which the Legislature can change (or suspend) at any time. We’re talking about the latter type of rule.
Currently, legislative rules require legislators to announce all their bills within the first two weeks of the seven-week legislative session. Beginning work on a new bill after this deadline requires a legislative vote to grant permission for an exception.
To get around this rule, legislators often prepare “boxcar” bills. A “boxcar” bill has a generic title (like “Tax code amendments”) without any content at all. Like an empty boxcar on a train, a boxcar bill can be filled with whatever the legislator wants later on. So you number a boxcar bill before the deadline, then wait until later to fill in the details.
Sen. Osmond wants to require all bills to have not only a title but also a summary of their contents before the deadline. Moreover, he wants to move the deadline up by four weeks, to two weeks before the legislative session starts. (To handle unforeseen circumstances, his reform would still allow legislators to request permission on the floor to open a new bill file after the deadline had passed.)
In recent years, legislators have moved toward introducing their bills later and then pushing them through the legislative process more quickly. In 2008, 44% of bills were written and introduced on the first day of the session; in 2012, only 28% of bills were ready on day 1. That’s a steep decline. We also see it in other metrics:
You can find additional statistics along these lines in a previous post: Bills were introduced later and passed faster in 2012. It seems Sen. Osmond wants to reverse this trend.
The Legislature processes an incredible number of bills during each session. Although it meets only 7 weeks each year, it passes far more bills than Congress, which meets year-round. No wonder that the Legislature sometimes acts so quickly handling a particular bill (like this one) that it lacks time to perceive potential problems. I suppose that’s why Sen. Osmond has proposed this reform.
Context for Sen. Osmond’s proposed rules changes
Utah legislator flashcardsThe 2013 Utah Legislature will convene in a few short weeks. Are you ready? If you haven’t studied my Utah legislator flashcards, then you probably aren’t. Enjoy.
Party Identification, Party Registration, and “Unaffiliated” VotersOnly 26% of unaffiliated voters also identify as independents. The remaining unaffiliated voters split evenly between Republicans (35%) and Democrats (34%). In other words, it’s probably okay to confuse registered Republicans (party registration) with self-identified Republicans (party identification), but unaffiliated voters are not always independents.
This analysis was performed by Zach Smith, a student research fellow at BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (like us on Facebook), in collaboration with CSED faculty. The writing is mostly his. Inquiries about this research should come to Quin Monson.
Even though they sound alike, party registration and party identification are conceptually different. In Utah and many other states, when you register to vote you can also register with a specific political party or as “unaffiliated.” This registration status can be changed online. Formal party registration is technically different from party identification—the “psychological attachment” or sense of identity that a voter has for a political party. Party identification is usually measured on a survey with a question something like, “Generally speaking, do you consider yourself a Republican, a Democrat, an Independent, or what?”
Registered Republicans/Democrats can also self-identify as Republicans/Democrats, but that is not always the case. Furthermore, “unaffiliated” registered voters can express an identity as a partisan when answering a survey question. This is important because political science has long shown that a voter’s party identification is a very strong predictor of voting behavior and political attitudes. If the overlap between the two is high, then party registration becomes a good substitute for party identification when campaigns wish to target specific voters.
We examine the overlap between registration and identification using Key Research data collected in cooperation with BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (CSED) for June 2012 and October 2012. The sample for both surveys was taken from the file of registered voters, which includes party registration. Both surveys also asked respondents to state their partisan identification. The combined samples give us 912 individuals for a comparison of party registration and party identification.
The figure below shows the percent registered and identifying with each party as well as the percent of unaffiliated (party registration) and independent (party identification)1 The proportion of voters registered as Republicans (60%) is comparable to the proportion who identify as Republicans (65%). The gap is wider for Democrats, but the proportions are similar. Here’s where it starts to get interesting: for both parties, the proportion of self-identifiers exceeds the proportion of registered partisans. This leads to a percentage registering as unaffiliated (30%) that is quite a bit higher than the percent self-identifying as independent (12%).
The figure below breaks out the percentage of registrants who identify with each party. Not surprisingly, registered partisans also overwhelmingly self-identify as partisans. For example, of registered Democrats, 87% self-identify as Democrats. Likewise, of registered Republicans, 89% self-identify as Republicans. Only 26% of unaffiliated voters also identify as independents. The remaining unaffiliated voters split evenly between Republicans (35%) and Democrats (34%). In other words, it’s probably okay to confuse registered Republicans (party registration) with self-identified Republicans (party identification), but unaffiliated voters are not always independents.
Utah Republicans have a closed primary that requires voters to register as Republicans to participate. Unaffiliated voters can change their voter registration at the polls on primary election day, while voters already registered with a party cannot. When they have a primary, Utah Democrats have open primaries that allow anyone to participate. You might expect that because of the closed rules for Republicans and the lack of regular primaries for Democrats that voters who self-identify as Democrats would register as Republicans to have influence in the Republican candidate selection process (or to make mischief). As the figure above shows, this isn’t happening much, if at all, in Utah. In fact, there is a slightly higher percentage of registered Democrats who self-identify as Republicans (5%) than registered Republicans who self-identify as Democrats (2%). Despite some incentives to register and participate in the other party’s primary, there are not many voters who are in a position to do so.
Party identification is also typically separated into seven categories so that partisan identifiers can express the strength of their identity. Independents are typically allowed to “lean” toward one party or the other (and these “leaners” are often thought of as “closet partisans” because they behave just like voters who openly identify with the parties).2
In the figure below, the unaffiliated voters are examined by all seven party id categories. The unaffiliated voters tend to clump in the middle as “pure” independents (26%) or independent “leaners” (36%). Altogether, 62% of unaffiliated voters are either “pure” independents or independent “leaners.” It’s also striking that such a significant proportion of unaffiliated voters strongly identify as Republicans (11%) or Democrats (15%). Despite their strong attachment psychologically to a party, these voters fail to register with their favored party on the voter rolls. They possibly represent the voters that are unhappy with their party but still feel closer to them than any other group (i.e. Tea Party voters). Or perhaps they are strong partisans who are reticent to reveal their affiliation on a public record.
From another angle, ideology, unaffiliated voters in Utah are somewhat more likely to identify as conservatives (41%) than liberals (33%) or as neither (31%).
So, what do we know about party registration and party identification patterns in Utah? First, while they aren’t perfectly correlated, partisans typically register with their chosen party. Second, the majority of “unaffiliated” voters are not all true independents, but instead are spread about evenly across Republicans, Democrats, and independents, especially when the “leaners” are correctly classified as partisans. Third, while most unaffiliated voters consider themselves “pure” independents or independent “leaners,” there is a sizeable group of strong partisans among them. So, party registration overlaps significantly with party identification among registered partisans, but when it comes to “unaffiliated” voters having their party identification is important before making any assumptions.
2012 was Utah’s most Republican-leaning presidential vote since statehoodRelative to the nation, Utah cast a more Republican vote in 2012 than at any time since statehood.
I just noticed something interesting while playing with the 2012 presidential election results for Utah. By one metric, it appears Utah may have been more Republican in 2012 than in any previous presidential election.
That’s not to say that Romney won more of Utah’s vote than any previous Republican presidential candidate. To the contrary, Reagan won a greater share than Romney. Yet Utah’s 2012 vote was more Republican than its 1980 or 1984 votes. I’ll explain.
The easiest metric–but maybe not the most accurate–is to look at the percentage of the two-party vote1 won by each Republican presidential candidate. Utah’s presidential electoral history since statehood (1896) is shown below.
Utah’s presidential election results, 1896-2012, as Republican share of the two-party vote
You can see that the best-performing Republican presidential candidate in Utah has been Reagan (1980), followed by Reagan (1984), followed by Romney (2012). Remember one thing, though: Reagan also won the national popular vote by a decisive majority in both 1980 and 1984. If we want to measure how Republican Utah is, maybe we should compare Utah’s vote to the nation’s. After all, it doesn’t say much about Utah’s Republican tilt if it votes overwhelmingly for a Republican candidate (Reagan) who also won an overwhelming majority nationwide.
Here’s a modified version of the previous chart. As before, the maroon line shows the share of the vote won by Republican presidential candidates in Utah. I’ve added a blue line showing the share won by Republican candidates nationally.
Comparing Utah’s presidential vote to the national popular vote, 1896-2012
The green bars at the bottom are the most interesting metric. They show the difference between Utah’s vote and the nation’s. When the green bar is positive, Utah voted more heavily Republican than the nation did; when the green bar is negative, Utah voted more Democratic than the nation. Let’s call this metric the “Republican advantage” in Utah. Orange dots at the base of the green bars indicate years where Utah voted consistent with the national popular vote, showing that Utah was something of a swing state for much of its history until the past few decades.
You’ll find the greatest Republican advantage–that is, the tallest green bar–in 2012. Romney’s vote share in Utah exceeded his vote share nationally by 26.4 percentage points. Reagan (1980) is in second place, with a Republican advantage of 22.7 points. Relative to the nation, Utah cast a more Republican vote in 2012 than at any time since statehood.
Maybe it’s because Romney is a Mormon. Or maybe it’s because Utah has moved even more to the right in recent years. Utah was very Republican by the 1980s, and people may struggle to believe that it’s even possible for it to have moved further to the right. But I’ve published lots of research here in the past couple years showing that Utah has done exactly that. You can find some of those posts here and here and here. We’ll see whether the trend continues or reverses in 2016.
2012 was Utah’s most Republican-leaning presidential vote since statehood
Research about redistrictingI’ve posted a fair amount here about Utah’s redistricting process, including some stuff showing that maybe it has less effect on Utah’s election results than some claim (see here and here and here and here and here).
Today at The Monkey Cage, John Sides gives a great rundown of what political scientists mean when they push back against claims that redistricting caused the 2012 election results. He’s writing from a national perspective, not a Utah perspective. Still, check it out. His point about “counterfactuals” sums up many of the redistricting posts I’ve published here.
If you’re not already familiar with it, The Monkey Cage is written by political scientists with a focus on national politics. The goal is to show what political science research has to say about current political topics. It’s well worth reading.
How early did voters decide who to vote for?In noncompetitive, low-profile races like the first and third districts, voters take a bit longer to decide than they do in competitive, highly publicized races like the fourth district.
This analysis was performed by Robert Richards, a student research fellow at BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (“like” CSED on Facebook), in collaboration with CSED faculty. The writing is mostly his. Inquiries about this research should come to Adam Brown or Quin Monson.
In many elections, the press tends to make a big deal about the number of undecided voters in any given race and the potential of these undecideds to change the outcome of the election. So what kinds of people wait until a few days before the election to make up their minds? One way to examine undecided voters is to look at what kinds of voters decide earlier in the election cycle rather than later. We asked questions on the Utah Colleges Exit Poll about when they decided who they would vote for in their U.S. House election.
It turns out that early deciders and late deciders tend to be different on certain demographic factors. Those who decided earlier who to vote for in their U.S. House elections were older, wealthier, more educated, more Democratic, and more likely to be male. The early deciders also tend to be more strongly ideological (whether in the conservative or liberal direction) and more strongly partisan (whether Republican or Democrat). Even when controlling for strength of partisanship, Republicans tend to take longer to make up their minds.1
In addition to differences among voters, there were interesting differences across districts in when voters decided who to vote for. The graph below shows some of these differences, controlling for various political and demographic variables, as well as the party and incumbency status of the candidate the person eventually voted for.2 The solid lines show what percentage of voters remained undecided by the specified time period. The dotted vertical lines mark the point at which 50% of voters in each district had made their decisions.
The first and third districts were virtually the same in this regard. Both of these districts had incumbents running without exceptionally strong challengers. These two races largely went unnoticed by the rest of the state, and the incumbents ultimately took home at least 65% of the vote in their respective districts.
The second district battle between Chris Stewart and Jay Seegmiller also went largely unnoticed statewide, but the seat was open due to Jim Matheson’s decision to run in the new fourth district. Without a well-known incumbent running, and without a high level of media attention to help them out, voters took slightly longer to decide in the second district than in other districts.
Meanwhile, voters in the fourth district decided far earlier than voters elsewhere. This was the intense, highly publicized campaign between Jim Matheson and Mia Love, which turned out to be a very close race. Despite the large amounts of money spent late in the race, this race’s intense media coverage apparently helped voters in this race make their decisions earlier than voters in the other districts.
Based on this analysis, it seems that the number of undecided voters in a Congressional race is affected by the kind of race going on in their district. In noncompetitive, low-profile races like the first and third districts, voters take a bit longer to decide than they do in competitive, highly publicized races like the fourth district. In competitive races without a lot of outside attention, voters take slightly longer to decide. We only have four cases to compare here, but the story seems reasonable based on the data.
The Utah Colleges Exit Poll was conducted on Election Day 2012 by student volunteers from various colleges and universities in the state of Utah. In addition to the Election Day polling, the UCEP also administered an online survey to early and absentee voters. One of the Election Day forms of the statewide questionnaire and the early voter survey both included the question about vote timing used in this analysis, which appeared as follows:
When did you finally decide who to vote for in the race between [name of Republican] and [name of Democrat]?
- Today
- 2-3 days ago
- Sometime last week
- Earlier in October
- In September
- Before September
Data for the modeling in this analysis was left unweighted, but was consistent with bivariate analysis using the weights.
How early did voters decide who to vote for?
Do voters believe that the president can influence the economy?Voters seem to interpret the economy through a distinctly partisan lens.
This analysis was performed by Ethan Busby, a student research fellow at BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (“like” CSED on Facebook), in collaboration with CSED faculty. The writing is mostly his. Inquiries about this research should come to David Magleby or Jeremy Pope.
During the 2012 presidential campaign, President Obama and Governor Romney clashed endlessly over the economy. Each presented a different vision of the state of America’s economy, and each had their own plans on how to improve the economic situation. For these differences to matter, however, voters actually have to believe that the president can influence the economy.
As part of the Utah Colleges Exit Poll, we asked voters about this influence on Election Day.1 The figure below gives the voters’ responses, with responses grouped by party.2
Utah voters’ perceptions of presidential influence over the economy, 2012
A distinctly partisan pattern emerges in these responses. Utah’s Republicans overwhelmingly feel the president has a significant influence on the economy; Democrats, on the other hand, consider the president’s economic influence to be moderate or small.3 Given these results, are voters’ views on the president’s economic influence colored by partisanship? Do Republicans always think the president has a significant influence on the economy or do their views change when a Democrat president presides over a struggling economy?
In 1992, the Utah Colleges Exit Poll asked respondents a similar question about the president and the economy.4 In many ways, the political situation in 1992 also mirrored the election in 2012. The incumbent faced tough economic times and a challenger who made the economy the major push of his campaign. In the 1992 campaign, however, the incumbent George H.W. Bush was a Republican, and the challenger, Bill Clinton, was a Democrat. Utah voters in 1992 felt differently:
Utah voters’ perceptions of presidential influence on the economy, 1992
The difference in these figures is striking. As a whole, Democrats and Republicans in Utah held the reverse opinions in 1992 as they did in 2012. More than 70 percent of Utah’s Republicans felt that the economy was outside the president’s control, and almost the same amount of Utah’s Democrats felt that an effective president could control the economy. Independents fell almost exactly in the middle on this question.5
Voters seem to interpret the economy through a distinctly partisan lens. Perhaps our economic perceptions are simply not objective. When the economy is bad, those who support the president claim economic matters are beyond his power to control. Those who want to replace the president instead claim that he is responsible for economic problems and that the challenger can reasonably fix the economic situation. Our evaluation of the economy may be much less reasonable than we’d like to think. In 1992, Clinton’s campaign famously embraced the motto that “It’s the economy, stupid.” This motto may not be as true as it is catchy. Stupid or not, it’s all about the politics.
The Utah Colleges Exit Poll is an exit poll administered to a multistage sample across the state of Utah. This survey was administered on Election Day (in both 2012 and 1992) during the time that voting locations were open. You can click here to read more about the exit poll.
Do voters believe that the president can influence the economy?
Do candidates’ issue positions influence voters?Utah voters may selectively think of only certain issues
This analysis was performed by Ethan Busby, a student research fellow at BYU’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy (“like” CSED on Facebook), in collaboration with CSED faculty. The writing is mostly his. Inquiries about this research should come to David Magleby or Jeremy Pope.
Many of us would like to think that we make our voting decisions based on the political issues at stake. But is this really the case? On Election Day, we asked voters about the influence of issue positions in their voting decisions.1 Voters’ options on this question ranked from one to five, one being the most positive influence and five being the most negative influence.
The figure below illustrates some differences between Obama voters and Romney voters.
What percentage of voters say that candidates’ issue positions affect their vote choice?
Practically speaking, however, these differences do not seem to be very important. The overwhelming majority of voters for both candidates felt that the issue positions of their candidate of choice influenced their vote in a positive way. These results reinforce the importance of issues in citizens’ vote choice.
However, do these respondents’ issue positions actually match the candidates they say they supported? We also asked voters about their views on reducing the national deficit.2 Voters who said the candidates’ issues positively influenced them broke down the following way:
What percentage of voters agree with Obama (“combination”) and Romney (“cut spending”) as a solution to the deficit?
More than forty percent of these Mitt Romney voters preferred a solution that included spending cuts and tax increases. This opinion does not match with Mitt Romney’s stated deficit plan. In the first presidential debate, for example, Mitt Romney stated that he “absolutely” would not accept a deficit reduction plan that included raising taxes.3 The Romney campaign also tried to focus on the economy and the deficit, hoping that these issues would attract conservatives and moderates across the country. These responses seem to indicate forty percent of these Romney voters either did not agree with Romney’s position on the deficit or were ignorant of his actual position. Maybe they simply missed the message.
Many Utah voters who stated that Mitt Romney’s issue positions impacted their vote positively were more moderate on the deficit than Romney himself was. Perhaps the evolution (or waffling, depending on which side of the political spectrum you fall) of Romney’s positions was lost on Utah voters. These Utah voters may simply be subscribing to an older version of Mitt Romney.
Another possibility is that Utah voters may selectively think of only certain issues.4 When asked about the influence of the candidates’ issue positions, Utah voters may also consider more than one issue. The broad category of “issues” encompasses a variety of topics, and asking voters to evaluate the impact of candidates’ issue positions may tap into something more complicated than simple agreement with a politician. In at least one case, almost forty percent of Mitt Romney’s supporters disagreed with one of his clearest issue positions, suggesting that these supporters probably agreed with him in other areas. These findings may imply that when respondents say that the candidate’s position positively influenced them, they are thinking of only select issues, rather than the candidate’s entire platform. Voters may have political blinders on, focusing on one or two issues and simply ignoring the platform as a whole.
The Utah Colleges Exit Poll is an exit poll administered to a multistage sample across the state of Utah. This survey was administered on November 6, 2012 during the time that voting locations were open. You can click here to read more about the exit poll.
Do candidates’ issue positions influence voters?
This blog has been live for a little over two years now. We published 69 new posts in 2012, for a total of 144 in the archive. Our most popular posts in 2012 generally fell into three categories:
For the curious, these were the most-viewed posts of 2012:
Thanks for reading!