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> Most analysis/commentary I've seen says that partisan differences in turnout are a much bigger factor in winning elections than appealing to the center. I've
by JamesBarney 4y ago
> Most analysis/commentary I've seen says that partisan differences in turnout are a much bigger factor in winning elections than appealing to the center.
I've heard a lot of people say this, I've never seen any good data on this. Every analysis I've seen that compared how moderate and more extreme candidates did compared to the president consistently showed the moderates did better than the extreme. I'd be curious to see your analysis/commentary that shows the opposite.
- 0xcde4c3db 4y agoI shouldn't have phrased it as "appealing to the center", but rather something like "appealing to true independents" or "appealing to swing voters". There is significant ideological breadth within the parties, and it's clear that appealing to more center-leaning voters can be a winning strategy, but that's less because there's a big chunk of the electorate composed of nonpartisan centrists and more because the most extreme candidates also tend to polarize and demotivate parts of their own party coalition while unifying and motivating the opposing party. Swing voters are far from nonexistent, it's just that their numbers are small compared to partisan (again: not necessarily registered party-affiliated) voters unless you define "swing voter" incredibly broadly [1]. Capturing their votes is clearly good for a campaign, but only if it can be in a way that is also sensitive to their partisan voters. [1] https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/just-how-many-swing-voters-are-there/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/just-how-many-swing-vot...