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Political Cynicism And Third Party Support In American Presidential Elections

State University of New York at Geneseo

Recent scholarship on American voting behavior contends that political cynicism prompts citizens to support a third party candidate. I maintain this research fails to consider an alternative direction of causality between political trust and third party support. Using an exogenous measure of political trust, one uncontaminated by candidate preference, analysis demonstrates that political cynicism is shaped by preference for an American third party rather than being causally prior to that preference. Students of American electoral behavior must consider the possibility that major third party candidacies shape supporters’ political orientations and concerns in much the same manner as the major political parties do.

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