Cross-pressured voters

Voters generally use three categories to decide how to cast their ballots.  Those categories are what they think of the candidate, the candidate’s party, and the issues supported by the candidate.  When all three line up, the vote choice is easy.

For example, say you like Rep. Doyle Heffley.  You think he is a wonderful man, a local boy who made good, and you’d like to see him receive the pension he will get if he is re-elected this November.

Let’s also say your parents were Republican, you have always been a Republican, and you associate the Democratic Party with the middle class or worse.

Finally, let’s say you deny climate change, think fracking is a great idea and it would be a shame to tax natural gas drillers, and you don’t care one bit about endangered species or the environment in general.

I can predict with confidence that you will be voting for Corbett and Heffley this November.  Candidate = R.  Party = R.  Issues = R.  Vote = R.

The interesting voters are the ones who don’t line up.  Say you think Heffley is a nice guy, “one of us” as his ads say, but you are registered as a Democrat.  On issues, you are annoyed that Rep. Heffley voted for vaginal probes for women who want abortions, and you find his actions on endangered species and educational cuts to be appalling.  

I can’t predict with confidence how you will vote.  Candidate = R.  Party = D.  Issues = D.  You are a “cross-pressured voter.”  Cross-pressured voters tend to make up their minds late or fail to vote.  They are also the ones candidates need to win over.

I would be remiss if I didn’t print out that some voters only vote one of the three variables.  They only look at the candidate, or they always vote straight Republican, or their only concern is the 2nd Amendment.  Those voters never made sense to me, although you can predict their vote if you can identify their voting variable.

And yes, this will be on the quiz.