UNITED STATES
The 2013 Virginia gubernatorial race was yet another example of a modern day distasteful election.
formation,” said Brehm. The negative qualities of the campaign make voters solely receptive to negative messages, and what are already highly negative sentiments grow further, resulting in a discontented electorate.
THE DIFFICULT CHOICE: MOVING DOWN THE BALLOT A unique case of distasteful elections is the distasteful downticket election. The most obvious of these cases are senatorial and gubernatorial elections that fall in presidential election years. Because of the highly publicized nature of presidential elections, these races rarely overshadow the presidential election, and voters ultimately turn out. In effect, the presence of the presidential race forces voters to make a choice in the downballot election. How do these voters then behave? Voters react in a unique manner to down-ballot unpopularity. Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at University of Virginia told the HPR, “This is a polarized era, and by and large, voters stick with the party they identify with or lean to from top to bottom of the ballot.” This modern polarization means that voters are unlikely to cross their party affiliations, so downballot elections with unpopular options can experience voter fatigue. This phenomenon occurs when “a certain percentage of voters will vote for the top office and then skip some or all lower ballot offices,” explained Sabato. The 2012 election provides several clear cases of such voter fatigue. In Indiana in 2012, 2,624,534 votes were cast for president, but only 2,560,102 votes were cast for senator, a difference of 64,432, or nearly 2.5 percent of voters. Similarly, the Missouri 2012 elections had a difference of 43,700 between ballots cast for president and senator, or 1.6 percent of voters. It is difficult to attribute motive to voter fatigue, as similar
results can also occur in uncontested races, where taking the time to check the box could seem unnecessary. In Minnesota in 2012, 3.3 percent of people voting for president declined to cast a vote for senator. In this case, however, Sen. Amy Klobuchar was a heavy favorite and elected by a 35 percent margin. For comparison, the 2012 Massachusetts Senate election only had a difference of 11,214 out of 3,167,767 votes cast for president, or a mere 0.35 percent voter fatigue. Through these elections, we can discern the effect of disapproval on voter fatigue. Massachusetts provides a good example of a highly competitive Senate election where both candidates had high approval ratings, and voter fatigue was consequently low. In comparison, the Missouri and Indiana elections indicate a high level of distaste in the electorate. The elections were both highly contested and highly public in nature, so voter ambivalence as in the Minnesota case cannot explain the relatively high voter fatigue. Instead, the results point to a situation where voters declined to vote in down-ballot elections because of distasteful choices. Some voters chose to leave the ballot blank instead of voting for either their party’s unpopular choice or the opposition party’s candidate. The 2013 Virginia gubernatorial election is not unique in modern American politics. The distasteful nature of the election is not a special result of the two candidates; rather, the candidates’ qualities are indicative of modern political polarization. Polarization has caused voter disengagement with the political process; disengagement subsequently renders any positive political messages inaudible to voters, and the received negative messages reinforce said polarization. Action must be taken to reverse polarization or the political gridlock of the past few years will prove much more than a transient phase in our shared political history.
WINTER 2013 HARVARD POLITICAL REVIEW 21