Data from a Candidate Calculator

Ravi IyerUniversity of Southern California

Suzanne Soule & Jennifer Nairne Center for Civic Education

Doug StenstromUniversity of Southern California

What I hope to do....

Introduce VoteHelp and the idea of candidate calculators

Cluster analysis to move beyond liberal/conservative analysis

Moral Foundation Questionnaire results based on clusters identified

Ask for your help in future research

What is a Candidate Calculator?

Allows voters to match their opinions to the positions of politicians on an issue by issue basis

Allows voters to weight the importance of each issue

Importance is relative to a relatively comprehensive set of issues

Produces a ranked list of politicians Allows users to see how the rankings were

generated

VoteHelp.Org

VoteHelp.Org results page

VoteHelp Traffic

Referring Sites

Referring Sites

Cluster Analysis

“Each person's more-or-less idiosyncratic perspective cannot be captured by assuming that all people use the same dimensions” (Fleishman 1986).

Knoke – Dimensions of political attitudes – economic issues, social issues, & racial issues (1979)

Previous Cluster Analyses? Likely to be outdated by the time they are

published using older issues

Fleishman (1986)

ANES 1980 data - ~400-500 people 6 groups – liberals, quasi-liberals (less minority aid),

conservatives, advocates of limited government, those with pro-labor attitudes (and anti-civil rights), those who are middle of the road in attitudes toward government economic programs.

12 issues: civil rights, defense spending, government services, inflation vs. unemployment, abortion, aid to minority groups, relations with the Soviets, women's place in society, guaranteed jobs, the Equal Rights Amendment, busing, and nuclear power.

4 Clusters

2 Liberal Groups

Group 1 – Top issues by issue importance

Iraq - Decision

Universal Health Care

Abortion

Gay Marriage

Stem Cell Research

Group 2 – Top issues by Issue Importance

Universal Health Care

Environment Regulation

Global Warming

Iraq - Withdrawal

Education Funding

2 Conservative Groups

Group 1 – Top issues by Issue Importance

Immigration Enforcement

Gun Ownership

Aggressive Foreign Policy

Government Spending

Immigration Amnesty

Group 2 – Top issues by Issue Importance

Abortion

Gay Marriage

Iraq - Decision

Drug Policy

Stem Cell Research

Beyond Liberal and Conservative

Social issue liberals Environment and

education liberals

Law and order conservatives

Social issue conservatives

Harper's Bazaar Roundtable

Baker - The Republican Party is now three factions having an argument: the social-issues faction, the security faction, and the big-money libertarian faction.”

McConnell - “real libertarians are pretty rare”

What can you do with this?

Issue based coalitions – i.e. Social conservatives want increased educational funding (M=5.4, 7th most important issue) and agree on environmental issues (M=4.7-4.9), but do not place as much importance on it (21st and 23rd out of 28 issues).

Areas where 1 group drives policy – i.e. Drug policy is only important to social conservatives.

Issue analysis - Iraq withdrawal pits law and order conservatives against both liberal groups with social conservatives apathetic.

Moral Foundation Theory

Haidt & Graham 2007 Harm Fairness Ingroup Loyalty Authority Purity Linked study at yourmorals.org - N=184

Conservatives vs. Liberals

MFQ Results by Cluster

R e p o rt

3 .5 9 7 0 3 .3 1 3 7 2 .8 3 5 4 2 .9 3 6 7 2 .7 2 9 4

4 6 4 6 4 6 4 6 4 6

.8 9 6 0 6 .6 2 4 7 5 1 .0 5 0 9 3 .9 5 7 2 2 1 .3 3 4 8 3

3 .8 6 3 6 3 .8 0 8 4 2 .1 5 1 8 2 .2 8 3 7 1 .7 0 7 8

4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

.6 0 5 1 0 .5 2 1 0 7 .8 5 5 5 7 .8 1 0 5 2 .9 4 8 2 5

4 .0 3 3 6 3 .8 5 6 6 2 .1 3 8 7 2 .2 3 0 0 1 .9 8 4 2

3 4 3 4 3 4 3 4 3 4

.4 5 5 7 7 .5 7 8 2 8 .7 5 0 8 9 .7 2 2 2 6 .7 8 1 9 9

3 .4 2 0 5 3 .4 0 9 1 2 .8 2 9 5 3 .0 7 6 7 2 .8 3 2 4

4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4 4

.7 9 1 5 3 .6 1 0 2 1 .8 1 1 9 3 .8 3 0 5 6 .9 7 4 9 6

3 .2 8 7 9 2 .8 9 8 4 2 .7 9 6 9 3 .2 1 8 8 3 .7 1 8 8

1 6 1 6 1 6 1 6 1 6

.8 3 1 9 2 .7 9 2 1 7 .8 2 1 4 3 .7 0 7 8 4 .9 3 7 0 8

3 .6 7 2 4 3 .5 1 9 0 2 .5 3 8 4 2 .7 0 8 0 2 .4 5 8 1

1 8 4 1 8 4 1 8 4 1 8 4 1 8 4

.7 6 6 5 0 .6 6 8 9 6 .9 3 2 4 7 .9 1 1 7 5 1 .1 9 2 9 9

Me a n

N

Std . D e via tio n

Me a n

N

Std . D e via tio n

Me a n

N

Std . D e via tio n

Me a n

N

Std . D e via tio n

Me a n

N

Std . D e via tio n

Me a n

N

Std . D e via tio n

ym _ clu s te r3.0 0

1 .0 0

2 .0 0

3 .0 0

4 .0 0

To ta l

MFQ_ H AR M_AVG

MFQ_FAIR N ESS_

AVG

MFQ_IN GR OU P_

AVG

MFQ_AU TH OR ITY_

AVGMFQ_

PU R ITY_ AVG

MFQ Results

Replicated Haidt & Graham findings using issue positions rather than self identification as liberal/conservative

Found that social conservatives score higher on purity foundation

Found that law and order conservatives score higher on fairness foundation

Summary

Importance questions are important... .... especially in context of comprehensive set of

issues. Cluster analysis can be leveraged into future

work to get beyond liberal/conservative splits. Combining cluster results with linked studies

can help other theories get beyond liberal and conservative distinctions too.

Future Directions (I need your help!)

Data analysis (more clusters, specific issues)

Linked studies

Candidate calculators in other countries

Candidate calculators for local elections

www.polipsych.com - Paper, presentation and spreadsheet of issue importance and position means by cluster.

www.yourmorals.org - more on the moral foundations questionnaire

www.votehelp.org

raviiyer@usc.edu