William_T._Bianco,_David_T._Canon]_American_Polit

American political parties today 277

like providing health insurance to the uninsured, dealing with global warming, and

strengthening the military. On only a few issues—for example, fighting drug addiction

or dealing with lobbyists—are the percentages of those in both parties who consider

the matter a priority nearly the same. These data demonstrate that party labels are

meaningful: if you know someone is a Republican (or a Democrat), this information

tells you something about what that person probably wants government to do, and how

he or she will likely vote in the next election.

Figure 8.5 shows the most fundamental difference in Democratic and Republican

identifiers: consistent with the party’s brand names and their positions on specific

issues, Democrats are the more liberal party in America, while Republicans are more

conservative. As you can see, the Democratic Party distribution is dominated by liberal

identifiers, while the Republican distribution is dominated by conservatives—although

there is still some overlap in the middle, meaning that both parties claim some moderates.

Moreover, the current parties are much more homogeneous than a generation ago, with

liberals much more likely to be Democrats and conservatives more likely to be Republicans.

FIGURE

8.5

This graph shows the ideological

differences between Democratic and

Republican identifiers. The blue area

shows the distribution of Democrats,

and the red plot shows the distribution

of Republicans. This confirms that

modern American political parties are

ideologically polarized (the median

Democrat is a liberal, while the median

Republican is a conservative) and

homogeneous (most Democrats are

liberal or liberal-leaning, while most

Republicans are conservative or

conservative-leaning). How might

these differences affect the kinds of

candidates who compete for each

party’s nomination and the positions

they take during campaigns?

Source: Pew Research Center, “Ideological

Polarization in the American Public,”

June 12, 2014, http://www.people-press.org

(accessed 12/20/15).

Median

Democrat

Median

Republican

Consistently Mixed

liberal

Consistently

conservative

Democrats Republicans Overlap

The Parties in

the Electorate

Knowing that someone is a Democrat or a Republican tells you a lot about the issues

he or she cares about, whether he or she will like or dislike different candidates, and

whom he or she will vote for in an election. Taken together, information about the kinds

of people who identify with each party tells you a lot about the kinds of candidates who

will run under the party banner and the platforms they will campaign on.

“Why

Should

I Care?”

Full_09_APT_64431_ch08_262-295.indd 277 16/11/18 1:40 PM