By Edward L. Lascher Jr., California State University, Sacramento; Brian Adams, San Diego State University, and Danielle Martin, California State University, Sacramento
The hand-wringing over American politics usually focuses on the sharp and growing differences between Democrats and Republicans.
A growing body of evidence suggests that voters are less likely than ever to split their votes or vote for candidates from different parties in presidential or congressional elections. Polarization on sensitive issues has increased, as has hostility toward members of the opposing party.
Research also shows that state-level political campaigns have become more partisan, with the results of state-level campaigns more closely reflecting the results of presidential elections than they once did.
As political scientists who study local politics, we wanted to know: Does this partisanship also apply to city, district and other local elections?
Controversy over partisanship in local elections
Scholars have paid relatively little attention to local elections, but some academic research suggests that local elections have also become increasingly partisan. This would suggest that the details of local election campaigns—for example, debates over housing, homelessness, and public works projects—are less important to voters’ decisions than party affiliation.
There is reason to be skeptical about these claims.
For one thing, most mayoral and city council elections in the United States are formally nonpartisan, as are most school board elections. Voters may not even know the candidates’ party affiliation. And contentious local issues, such as where to build affordable housing, may not fall clearly along party lines.
In addition, voters may not care as much about partisan control of local governments as they do at the national level.
That’s what many voters said in our 2021 poll conducted in California and cited in our 2024 Urban Affairs Review article. Over 60% of respondents said they cast their vote based on candidates’ policy positions rather than party affiliation, a factor that far surpasses other voting shortcuts such as relying on party endorsements or candidates’ demographics.
Of course, it is also possible that the voters we surveyed said they prioritized issues over politics simply because it is more socially desirable; it makes them appear more conscientious and thoughtful.
That’s why we decided to test their commitment to non-partisanship in local elections.
A survey experiment
How would voters react if they were faced with a choice and the candidate from the opposing party was closer to their political views than the candidate from their own party? Would they actually defect to the opposing party in this race?
To answer these questions, our team of three researchers conducted a survey experiment at two California State University campuses that built on the results of our 2021 survey. In the new survey, conducted in late 2022 with 905 partisan registered voters in California, we gave respondents a choice between a city council candidate from their party who held policy views opposite to their own and a candidate from the other party who shared their policy preferences.
The poll focused on two highly relevant local issues: homelessness and housing. These issues are important to voters, and prominent California politicians from the same party have taken different positions on them.
In the experiment, some respondents had to choose between a politician from their own party who agreed with them on one of these issues and a candidate from the opposing party who did not; this was the control group. In our separate test group, voters had to choose between a candidate from their own party who disagreed with them on one of the issues and a candidate from the opposing party who shared their views on that issue.
The experimental approach allowed us to isolate differences on these two questions from other policy issues that may have influenced their voting.
Our findings
We found that voters overall are more likely to support candidates from their own party—even when a candidate from the opposing party was closer to their views on important local issues. About 60% of Democrats and Republicans supported their party’s candidate for city council despite policy differences.
However, four out of ten respondents in this vote left their party because they gave priority to local issues – or at least these two local issues – over party affiliation.
In fact, most voters have abandoned their party’s candidate under certain circumstances. A full 70 percent of respondents who favor a police-led approach to homelessness, such as clearing the conspicuous tent encampments that have sprung up across California, would support a city council candidate from the opposing party who called for police to clear tent cities.
Looking more closely at the patterns from our experimental data, we found that both strength of party affiliation and political views mattered. Weak partisans were more likely to cross party lines than strong partisans. Voters were also more likely to cross party lines if they considered homelessness and housing to be very important issues or if they had more extreme political preferences.
Party affiliations: Practical, but not binding
Our research refutes the common belief that partisanship dominates the decision-making process in American elections.
It suggests that Republican candidates can win in predominantly Democratic districts and vice versa. Voters may cross party lines for politicians who take an appealing stance on local, serious issues, which may require a break with party orthodoxy. Nonpartisan ballots that obscure candidates’ party affiliations may entice voters to switch parties.
The consequences are severe. More than 500,000 elected officials—96 percent of all elected officials in the United States—serve at the local level, serving on city councils, county councils, school boards, special districts, and the like.
In local politics, it turns out, a candidate’s party affiliation is more of a practical matter for voters than an identification that brings great loyalty. Partisanship means less about staying loyal to your local sports team, even if it’s having a bad season, and more about shopping at the nearest supermarket until a better one comes along.
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
