Voter Turnout Analysis

First, Models 1-4 suggest that turnout does not have a significant impact on party strength. In the national party strength models, turnout does indeed have a significant and positive impact on party strength. This finding makes perfect sense. At the start of the period of study, whether one voted was highly dependent on class. Today, this relationship is not as strong. Figures 3.3 and 3.4 show a distinctive upward trend in the data. Moreover, midterm effects are visible. It makes it reasonable to expect that more new voters were showing up at the polls and voting for at least some Republican candidates in high profile races. Turnout is not by itself significant in any of the state party strength models. This suggests that candidates such as Senator Trent Lott and President Ronald Reagan may have been able to convince new southern voters to show up and vote for them, but those new voters continued to vote for Democratic candidates in state level
To control for these effects on turnout, I included the variable midterm in all models, as well as the interaction term midterm* percentage turnout in Congressional elections. The data do not show any statistical relationship between midterm and midterm* percentage turnout in Congressional elections in the party strength or national party strength models. Interestingly, both variables are significant in the state party strength models. Midterm is negatively signed and statistically and substantively significant. During midterm elections, party strength for elected state officials was depressed 0.103 (on a scale out of 1, this is a sizable disadvantage to the Republican Party). Running counter to this finding, however, is the fact that the interaction term midterm* percentage turnout in Congressional elections was positive and significant. To put this in perspective, this means that an increase of 20 percentage points in turnout during a midterm election would increase state party strength by 0.067 out of 1. Increases in the size of midterm turnout during the period under study were seen in virtually all of the southern states, and this increase helped the Republican Party. In all, this means that the assumption that increased turnout in the South benefits the Democratic Party is false. These findings indicate that instead, that increased turnout
The coefficient on House party difference in Model 1 does not reach statistical significance. House party difference is also used in Model 4. In this model, the coefficient on this variable again does meet statistical significance. Figure 3.6 displays data showing that in the 1950s this measure was below 0.5 and had risen to above 1.0 by 2010. With a technical range from 0 to 1 for party strength, the 0.5 change in the Polarization of the House of Representatives that was seen during the period of study would account for an increase of 0.034 in party strength, which is not