Anticandidate Voting in the 1984 Presidential Election

In: Political behavior, Band 11, Heft 1, S. 81-92

Abstract

Data from a 1984 national survey (N = 2,481 respondents) are used to analyze anticandidate voting in presidential elections, ie, voting focused more on a candidate one opposes than on a candidate one prefers. Such voting is viewed as the end product of a process whereby voters attempt to reduce discomfort that cross-pressures generate within their decision frameworks. In 1984, nearly 33% of all likely voters said they were primarily motivated by a desire to vote against one of the two presidential candidates, a rate of anticandidate voting similar to that observed in the Lyndon Johnson-Barry Goldwater election of 1964, but well below that of the 1980 Ronald Reagan-Jimmy Carter election. However, factors related to anticandidate voting in the past were not consistently linked to anticandidate voting in 1984. It is concluded that the presence of Ronald Reagan exerted such a strong influence on the 1984 campaign that processes that would normally be observable, eg, anticandidate voting, were overridden. 3 Tables, 7 References. HA