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Independents, Issue Partisanship and the Decline of Party

George Washington University

Mary Beth Merrin

American Institutes for Research

The growth in the electorate of those who classify themselves as independents and the recent tendency of partisans to vote for opposition party candidates constitute evidence of a general loosening of party ties. The argument of this article, however, is that reports of the demise of party have been exaggerated. Most independents lean in a partisan direction, and "leaners" are behavioral partisans almost the equal of weak identifiers. Moreover, a dimension of partisanship based on party issue intentions has important explanatory power and can be activated when issues with which the parties have been historically identified are salient. Although the findings fit the facts of the resurgence of partisanship in 1976, one cannot be sanguine that parties have regained their former role: partisans increasingly fail to perceive issue differences between the parties.

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