The Two Faces of Issue Voting

Abstract

Both implicit democratic norms and the reconstructions provided by theorists of rational choice suggest that issue voters are more sophisticated–educated, informed, and active in politics–than other voters. But some issues are clearly more difficult than others, and the voters who respond to “hard” and “easy” issues, respectively, are assumed to differ in kind. We propose the hypothesis that “easy-issue” voters are no more sophisticated than non-issue voters, and this is found to be the case. The findings suggest a reevaluation of the import of rising and falling levels of issue voting and suggest a prominent role for “easy” issues in electoral realignments.