Primary voters in presidential elections are remarkably moderate. They choose Clinton over Bernie, Biden over insane woke monstrosities, and then were denied a primary choice in 2024 by a party apparatus who let’s just say didn’t make wise choices.
Biden didn’t govern moderate because he’s senile and turned it over to progressive staffers, but moderation is what voters wanted out of him.
Trump is “moderate” on entitlements and until Iran moderate on foreign policy (the only gop candidate in 2016 to disown Iraq). His culture and immigration stance is basically bill clinton 1996.
With the exception of Ron DeSantis in 2024, I can think of nobody better running I the gop primary that ever polled well, and DeSantis ran a very poor campaign.
Where you get runaway candidates in the primary is where the general election doesn’t matter. Such as deep blue cities and states.
While it's not completely detached from reality, calling Trump a "moderate" is incredibly myopic. It's highly misleading to equate Trump's retrospective disapproval of the Iraq war with that of longtime opponents of war on the left and right. None of them, as far as I know, said the Iraq war was a mistake because we didn't seize oil, kill the families of terrorists, and "bomb the shit" out of them. "I love war in a certain way but only when we win" is not moderation on foreign policy.
On immigration, Trump in 2016 advocated building a wall to keep out Mexican "rapists" and a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" (even for travel!). This is not "basically Bill Clinton in 1996," even if Clinton was harder on illegal immigration than Democrats in 2016 were.
You're overcomplicating things. In a primary, the voters are the left/right-most half of the general electorate, and they choose the candidate that represents the median primary voter. So it'll roughly be a 25th/75th percentile candidate instead of the median/50th percentile candidate
And candidates are usually smart and try to tack back to center for the general, but can only disavow what they proclaimed a month ago so much
I would say that in elections where the general is expected to be competitive, primary voters often pick say the 35% candidate because electability is a factor in their decision making.
In elections where it is not competitive (blue states and cities) then its 25% or less (concentrated interest groups tend to punch above their weight in primaries).
Yeah, like the median voter theorem itself, it doesn't apply *exactly* to primaries, just an approximation. There can be issues where the primary electorate is *much* more, not just slightly more, extreme than the electorate too.
But overall I don't think you need a more detailed model if you're just trying to understand why we get so many non-centrist politicians
I generally like your analysis. But I differ on one point. In 1964, which I witnessed, Johnson had nearly every advantage any political individual or organization could give him, or more likely owed him in favors, and by "nearly every" I mean excepting only the Republican nomination and most Republican support.
Moreover, as the successor to the martyred John F. Kennedy, he was untouchable, and almost everyone knew it. Goldwater himself knew that America was not going to vote for a third president so soon after the assassination.
But Johnson's kindest friend, or since he didn't have friends his most adoring lickspittle, could not with a straight face maintain that he had any charisma whatsoever.
Johnson was that fairly uncommon sort of man who lied for pleasure, that rare sort of man who would rather cheat you than beat you fair and square, and indeed that extremely rare sort (I cannot name another) who would have you and everyone believe he cheated you than think he played fair. His like we have never seen again, and we are better for it.
Trump, by contrast, lies easily but for convenience, would like to beat you fair and square but often can't and will resort unhesitatingly and unblushingly to cheating, but would still rather have you believe (and declare!) that he played fair rather than cheated. Dishonesty of a very different type. And yet he has, for his partisans, charisma, marking the devolution of our political culture.
Bryan, I just wanted to let you know that your "Libertarian Purity Test" is currently unavailable. According to the Internet Archive, it may have been unavailable since March 22 of this year. When I go to http://www.bcaplan.com/cgi-bin/purity.cgi, I get an "Internal Server Error" message.
It is more accurate to say that the winning candidate is the one who can best scare the median voter with the horrors of the other candidate's policies, while shifting the median in his direction by discouraging potential voters that are more horrified by one's own policies from voting at all.
Under the American system the necessity of having to choose between the evil of two lessors, coupled to the tendency of ideologically-motivated bases of each party being easier to turn out than centrists and to the importance of fund-raising and other favors from special interests to successful campaigning, gives both candidates strong incentives to embrace policies that turn off the median voter to some extent. This phenomenon was famously lampooned in the 1996 Treehouse of Horror episode of _The Simpsons_: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w4j2c6fR7Y
Current midterm polling data indicates that range of voters containing the medians in many of the contested House and Senate races despise both Republican/MAGA and Democrat/DSA, but will vote Democrat this time around just to punish Trump for his failing economic policies.
I'm left completely unclear where this lands us. I think it means the median voter chooses between two sets of policies that don't come close the preferences of the median voter. Is that right?
This seems unlikely to me. The Founders envisioned a process under which voters would pick people whom they respected for their wisdom as state legislators and as Presidential electors; and those wise people would go on to pick Senators and Presidents. I don't believe they imagined political parties that existed purely for their own sake; even in their warnings about factions, one gets the impression that these factions would've existed to promote specific interests: farmers, shopkeepers, merchants, etc. And it's the existence of such parties that's debased the system that the Founders proposed.
In the specific case of Senators, direct election generally puts party creatures into office, as general-election voters have to make a choice between the winners of two partisan primaries; but one gets the occasional independent-thinking maverick. That wouldn't happen if state legislators got to name them, since almost every such legislature will be controlled by one party or the other, and wouldn't name a Senator if they weren't confident that they'd never deviate from the party line.
Why does the president mainly pay attention to the base when they will have to win a second term? Are they trying to avoid being voted out in the primaries and hope the median voter forgets their record?
I'm confused - wouldn't basic game theory say that the instant you get to the second-stage general election that you immediately pander to the new median voter who is more moderate than the median voter in the primary? It seems like we need some rationale here.
How about: "primaries pull candidates away from the general-election median to pander to the partisan median voter. The political commitments (vague I know) required to win the primary then make it costly (although still possible) for nominees to move back toward the center afterward." That explains why we might observe token rather than full moderation in the general election.
Primary voters in presidential elections are remarkably moderate. They choose Clinton over Bernie, Biden over insane woke monstrosities, and then were denied a primary choice in 2024 by a party apparatus who let’s just say didn’t make wise choices.
Biden didn’t govern moderate because he’s senile and turned it over to progressive staffers, but moderation is what voters wanted out of him.
Trump is “moderate” on entitlements and until Iran moderate on foreign policy (the only gop candidate in 2016 to disown Iraq). His culture and immigration stance is basically bill clinton 1996.
With the exception of Ron DeSantis in 2024, I can think of nobody better running I the gop primary that ever polled well, and DeSantis ran a very poor campaign.
Where you get runaway candidates in the primary is where the general election doesn’t matter. Such as deep blue cities and states.
While it's not completely detached from reality, calling Trump a "moderate" is incredibly myopic. It's highly misleading to equate Trump's retrospective disapproval of the Iraq war with that of longtime opponents of war on the left and right. None of them, as far as I know, said the Iraq war was a mistake because we didn't seize oil, kill the families of terrorists, and "bomb the shit" out of them. "I love war in a certain way but only when we win" is not moderation on foreign policy.
On immigration, Trump in 2016 advocated building a wall to keep out Mexican "rapists" and a "total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States" (even for travel!). This is not "basically Bill Clinton in 1996," even if Clinton was harder on illegal immigration than Democrats in 2016 were.
Aren't Democratic primaries held very differently than GOP ?
There are super delegates, but there hasn't been a primary lately where they could have denied the popular vote winner the nomination.
P.S. The entire presidential democratic primary is just "who does Clyburn endorse" anyway. Because he decides the black vote.
You're overcomplicating things. In a primary, the voters are the left/right-most half of the general electorate, and they choose the candidate that represents the median primary voter. So it'll roughly be a 25th/75th percentile candidate instead of the median/50th percentile candidate
And candidates are usually smart and try to tack back to center for the general, but can only disavow what they proclaimed a month ago so much
I would say that in elections where the general is expected to be competitive, primary voters often pick say the 35% candidate because electability is a factor in their decision making.
In elections where it is not competitive (blue states and cities) then its 25% or less (concentrated interest groups tend to punch above their weight in primaries).
Yeah, like the median voter theorem itself, it doesn't apply *exactly* to primaries, just an approximation. There can be issues where the primary electorate is *much* more, not just slightly more, extreme than the electorate too.
But overall I don't think you need a more detailed model if you're just trying to understand why we get so many non-centrist politicians
I generally like your analysis. But I differ on one point. In 1964, which I witnessed, Johnson had nearly every advantage any political individual or organization could give him, or more likely owed him in favors, and by "nearly every" I mean excepting only the Republican nomination and most Republican support.
Moreover, as the successor to the martyred John F. Kennedy, he was untouchable, and almost everyone knew it. Goldwater himself knew that America was not going to vote for a third president so soon after the assassination.
But Johnson's kindest friend, or since he didn't have friends his most adoring lickspittle, could not with a straight face maintain that he had any charisma whatsoever.
Johnson was that fairly uncommon sort of man who lied for pleasure, that rare sort of man who would rather cheat you than beat you fair and square, and indeed that extremely rare sort (I cannot name another) who would have you and everyone believe he cheated you than think he played fair. His like we have never seen again, and we are better for it.
Trump, by contrast, lies easily but for convenience, would like to beat you fair and square but often can't and will resort unhesitatingly and unblushingly to cheating, but would still rather have you believe (and declare!) that he played fair rather than cheated. Dishonesty of a very different type. And yet he has, for his partisans, charisma, marking the devolution of our political culture.
It would take a Plutarch to do the pair justice.
Bryan, I just wanted to let you know that your "Libertarian Purity Test" is currently unavailable. According to the Internet Archive, it may have been unavailable since March 22 of this year. When I go to http://www.bcaplan.com/cgi-bin/purity.cgi, I get an "Internal Server Error" message.
It is more accurate to say that the winning candidate is the one who can best scare the median voter with the horrors of the other candidate's policies, while shifting the median in his direction by discouraging potential voters that are more horrified by one's own policies from voting at all.
Under the American system the necessity of having to choose between the evil of two lessors, coupled to the tendency of ideologically-motivated bases of each party being easier to turn out than centrists and to the importance of fund-raising and other favors from special interests to successful campaigning, gives both candidates strong incentives to embrace policies that turn off the median voter to some extent. This phenomenon was famously lampooned in the 1996 Treehouse of Horror episode of _The Simpsons_: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_w4j2c6fR7Y
Current midterm polling data indicates that range of voters containing the medians in many of the contested House and Senate races despise both Republican/MAGA and Democrat/DSA, but will vote Democrat this time around just to punish Trump for his failing economic policies.
Lyndon Johnson had "general charisma"?
Basically: primaries suck. Do away with primaries, do away with these bad dynamics (other bad dynamics might take their place)
I'm left completely unclear where this lands us. I think it means the median voter chooses between two sets of policies that don't come close the preferences of the median voter. Is that right?
Do you think the original model for the Senate, i.e. chosen by State legislators, would have propped Congress up against the President?
I know that was one of the original checks on demagoguery, by placing some institutional barriers on voting.
This seems unlikely to me. The Founders envisioned a process under which voters would pick people whom they respected for their wisdom as state legislators and as Presidential electors; and those wise people would go on to pick Senators and Presidents. I don't believe they imagined political parties that existed purely for their own sake; even in their warnings about factions, one gets the impression that these factions would've existed to promote specific interests: farmers, shopkeepers, merchants, etc. And it's the existence of such parties that's debased the system that the Founders proposed.
In the specific case of Senators, direct election generally puts party creatures into office, as general-election voters have to make a choice between the winners of two partisan primaries; but one gets the occasional independent-thinking maverick. That wouldn't happen if state legislators got to name them, since almost every such legislature will be controlled by one party or the other, and wouldn't name a Senator if they weren't confident that they'd never deviate from the party line.
Why does the president mainly pay attention to the base when they will have to win a second term? Are they trying to avoid being voted out in the primaries and hope the median voter forgets their record?
I’d like more elaboration on “partisan charisma” and “general charisma.”
You say "Voters have a longer memory for inflation than for other economic variables, and they hate inflation."
It's probably more of a price level effect than an inflation effect
I'm confused - wouldn't basic game theory say that the instant you get to the second-stage general election that you immediately pander to the new median voter who is more moderate than the median voter in the primary? It seems like we need some rationale here.
How about: "primaries pull candidates away from the general-election median to pander to the partisan median voter. The political commitments (vague I know) required to win the primary then make it costly (although still possible) for nominees to move back toward the center afterward." That explains why we might observe token rather than full moderation in the general election.
This is a pretty good summary, and matches many of my thoughts. Question: How does this compare to Buchanan's public choice theory on this topic?