Policy voting in U.S. House primaries

This paper uses exit surveys of voters in four House primaries to ask how well voters are able to use primaries for the purpose of giving policy direction to their congressional parties. The surveys found that nearly half of voters could not recall the names of any candidate and that 11% were uncertain or could not recall for whom they had just voted. The surveys also found that nearly 40% of voters could not offer a political evaluation – that is, a like or dislike having political content – about any candidate, and that fewer than a quarter could offer political evaluations of as many as two candidates. The surveys found no evidence of policy-motivated voting in three of the four primaries, but substantial evidence of it in one. Yet even in that one race, voters split their support among three candidates sharing majority voter opinion on the key election issue and thereby opened the way for nomination of a candidate not sharing majority opinion. The paper concludes from this evidence that voters in these House primaries, and probably more widely, made little use of them for the purpose of giving policy direction to their parties.本研究依托四项众议院初选的选民出口民调（exit surveys），探讨选民能否有效利用初选，为其所属国会政党提供政策导向。民调结果显示，近半数选民无法回忆起任何参选候选人的姓名，另有11%的选民不确定或记不清自己刚刚投给了哪位候选人。民调同时发现，近四成选民无法对任何参选候选人给出带有政治内涵的评价（即基于政治立场的好恶评判），且仅有不到四分之一的选民能对至多两位候选人做出此类政治评价。民调显示，四项初选中有三项未体现出基于政策动机的投票行为，但在剩余一项初选中则存在大量此类证据。即便在该项初选中，选民仍将支持票分散给了三位在核心选举议题上契合多数选民立场的候选人，最终为不契合多数选民立场的候选人获得提名铺平了道路。基于上述证据，本研究得出结论：参与本次众议院初选的选民，乃至更广泛范围内的选民，都极少利用初选渠道为所属政党提供政策导向。