Are Primary Voters Really ‘Extreme’?

June 2018

Voters in primaries tend to be more extreme than those who vote in general elections, which means that more extreme candidates face each other each November.

One of the two extreme candidates wins office, and this creates, in turn, more polarization in our politics. That, anyway, is the conventional wisdom, but two new studies challenge the idea.

Analyzing five surveys of primary voters from 2008-2014, a team from several universities finds that in fact these voters “are not demographically distinct or ideologically extreme” compared to members of the same party that voted in the general election, but not the primary. “The only substantial difference,” the research discovered, “is that primary voters report more interest in politics.”

While it is true that turnout in primaries “has declined and the parties have become better ideologically sorted,” primary voters during this period “were ideologically representative subsets of the broader party following.” And those who vote in presidential primaries are also “more knowledgeable” than those who do not.

‘Problematic’ Primaries

The researchers concede that primaries “might be problematic for other reasons, such as that they do not provide sufficient deliberation within the party or a thorough enough review of each candidate’s qualifications. Nevertheless, our findings should serve to allay one concern about primary elections: that they empower ideological extremists within the parties.”

Further light is thrown onto the subject by another group of researchers who studied Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in their 2016 campaigns. Trump dominated the Republican primaries despite having changed his party affiliation five times, while Sanders offered stiff competition to Hillary Clinton after having become a Democrat “only three months before the New Hampshire primary — and then switched it back within 24 hours of losing the nomination.”

Voters supported Trump and Sanders over more mainstream candidates — over those, that is, with “a proven track record of ably navigating the system and achieving results for their constituents,” or those who are “most effective at getting things done because they have the relationships to help them navigate a fractured system.” What motivated Trump and Sanders’s voters was a rejection of that “fractured system” itself, and not their respective ideologies or policy agendas.

Distrust in Government

At least in the case of Trump and Sanders, the researchers found that primary election support for these two insurgents “was largely a product of underlying distrust of government” itself. These political scientists say their findings also support earlier research from 1989 and 2008, that primary voters “are not more ideologically extreme than the general electorate.” Voters in primaries prefer insurgents out of “dissatisfaction with the current political establishment,” which has been deepening since the 1970s.

Calls for reform of the primary process go back at least to 1956. Primaries were invented, of course, as a way to reform the existing process and end the system in which candidates were chosen by party bosses in “smoke-filled rooms.” It was Boss Tweed of Tammany Hall fame who said he didn’t care who “did the electing” as long as he “got to do the nominating.” Now the voters themselves get to “do the nominating,” and the wisdom of that practice is still being debated.

Want More Information on This Topic?

Contact Kristin Brackemyre, manager, PAC and advocacy practice, Public Affairs Council

Additional Resources

Maybe Moderates Can Win Primaries

Is the Public Warming Up to Lobbyists