It’s pretty rare for people to say they oppose the principles of democracy, and indeed, during the Brexit referendum, sovereignty was widely touted as a major reason behind the vote. Alas, new research from Yale suggests that the vast majority of American voters are far more interested in their chosen party than they are the democratic principles upon which they’re supposed to be founded.
The research revealed that just 3.5% of voters would vote against their preferred candidate if that candidate had exhibited undemocratic behavior, such as press restrictions or gerrymandering.
“Our findings show that U.S. voters, regardless of their party affiliation, are willing to forgive undemocratic behavior to achieve their partisan ends and policy goals,” the researchers say. “We find that polarization raises the stakes of elections and, in turn, the price of prioritizing democratic principles over partisan interests. Voters’ willingness to sacrifice democratic principles may not be desirable in terms of protecting democracy, but it has an intuitive political logic: They are trading off one political interest against another.”
What price democracy?
The researchers conducted a couple of experiments, the first of which was a survey that asked people to choose among various candidates, some of whom had violated key democratic principles, whilst the second was a natural experiment based upon Montana’s 2017 special election for the House of Representatives, in which the Republican candidate assaulted a journalist.
The results show that those candidates who embraced an undemocratic position lost around 11% of their vote share, which the researchers believe was exacerbated by the randomized nature of the experiment, which saw some of the hypothetical candidates adopting very unlikely positions. When the candidates were more representative of those in real life, just 3.5% of respondents would vote against their partisan interests to protect democracy.
The researchers believe the results highlight the damage caused by political polarization, as the ideological distinction between candidates raises the price voters pay to punish their preferred candidate for poor behavior.
They explain that in 2016, just 5% of House candidates won their seats by a margin lower than 7%, making the potential loss of 3.5% of voters unlikely to discourage them from acting poorly.
“Our findings suggest that in the overwhelming majority of House districts, a majority-party candidate could get away with openly violating a democratic principle,” the researchers say. “Voters make tradeoffs. For the most part, people support candidates who share their partisan, ideological, or policy goals, even if that means condoning undemocratic behavior.”
Punishing poor behavior
They go on to say that when Gianforte body slammed a reporter in his campaign office prior to the 2017 congressional election, around half of voters had already cast their ballot. This allowed the researchers to compare the votes of those who had done so before his act, with those who did so afterwards.
The comparison revealed that in politically moderate precincts, those who cast their vote after his act punished Gianforte and voted across party lines. However, in staunchly Republican precincts, very few voters switched sides to punish Gianforte.
The researchers believe that their findings highlight a potential blindspot in our understanding of support for democratic principles, which may be distorting the health and vibrancy of our democracies.
“Conventional measures don’t capture people’s willingness to act on their commitment to democratic values when doing so is politically costly,” the researchers conclude. “If, as we found, only a small percentage of voters are willing to punish undemocratic behavior by their favored candidates in one of the world’s oldest democracies, then we shouldn’t be surprised by voters’ failure to stop aspiring autocrats in younger democracies like Turkey, Hungary, or Venezuela.”
