Not sure this is a good use of the MVT but I came to the view long ago that MTV is a really bad model for general voting and elections but is a good model for party formation and platform—and I suppose, therefore, primary voting. I think as you start collapsing the complex issue space into a common dimension as it typically illustrated one should expect to see a multi-modal distribution. The modal centers then become the party platform locus.
I very much agree this is possible, if voters vote in primaries based on ideological proximity rather than electability. But then how come the national elections are close? Coincidence? And what would happen if a politician moved a bit more towards the center after winning the primaries?
A bit late seeing this. And I don’t think I have answers but a couple of thoughts on your questions.
I don’t think it’s coincidence but more like party affiliation have similar population sizes and similar voting participation rates then outcomes will likely be very close even when party platforms are far apart.
If the primary process pushes each side farther apart then any post primary move towards the center will only get shifts form those in the tail of the “other side” they want to steel votes from while probably alienating voters from a fatter section of the distribution they represent. So that is a p1*n1 = new votes taken from center and p2*n2 = votes lost from other half of your support distribution. I suspect p1 might be fairly high but n1 is very low while p2 is low (not sure how low to guess at) while n2 is probably much larger than n1. (This said, I do think you not only have generally seen that “move towards the center” in many elections as well as while in office. But seems to me this has not been happening in the more recent elections where are seeing party platforms much farther apart than say the past 40-50 years.)
Not sure this is a good use of the MVT but I came to the view long ago that MTV is a really bad model for general voting and elections but is a good model for party formation and platform—and I suppose, therefore, primary voting. I think as you start collapsing the complex issue space into a common dimension as it typically illustrated one should expect to see a multi-modal distribution. The modal centers then become the party platform locus.
I very much agree this is possible, if voters vote in primaries based on ideological proximity rather than electability. But then how come the national elections are close? Coincidence? And what would happen if a politician moved a bit more towards the center after winning the primaries?
A bit late seeing this. And I don’t think I have answers but a couple of thoughts on your questions.
I don’t think it’s coincidence but more like party affiliation have similar population sizes and similar voting participation rates then outcomes will likely be very close even when party platforms are far apart.
If the primary process pushes each side farther apart then any post primary move towards the center will only get shifts form those in the tail of the “other side” they want to steel votes from while probably alienating voters from a fatter section of the distribution they represent. So that is a p1*n1 = new votes taken from center and p2*n2 = votes lost from other half of your support distribution. I suspect p1 might be fairly high but n1 is very low while p2 is low (not sure how low to guess at) while n2 is probably much larger than n1. (This said, I do think you not only have generally seen that “move towards the center” in many elections as well as while in office. But seems to me this has not been happening in the more recent elections where are seeing party platforms much farther apart than say the past 40-50 years.)