Voting at the Political Fault Line "ss1.33"

THE IMPACT OF CROSSOVER VOTING ON THE PRIMARY ELECTION'S OUTCOME

Several studies of crossover voting (e.g., Hedlund, Watts, and Hedge 1982; Hedlund and Watts 1986) conclude that crossover voting rarely changes the outcome of a primary election. Others (Adamany 1976; Wekkin 1988) argue that since crossover voters' preferences usually differ significantly from those of same-party voters, they may have an indirect impact on electoral outcomes by influencing factors such as a candidate's momentum and fund-raising capacity. The present analysis examines the election tally itself. It draws upon the Los Angeles Times primary election exit poll to address the counterfactual question of whether Gray Davis and Matt Fong would have won under a closed primary, where crossover voting is by definition impossible.

The Governor's Race

The top panel of table 5.3 shows that Davis won among exit poll respondents with 57.4 percent of the votes for Democratic candidates, a result quite close to the final tabulation (57.6 percent). If the old closed primary rules had been in effect, all Democratic candidates would have lost the votes of registered Republicans, decline-to-states, and members of minor parties. It appears that Davis would have won even with this restriction, other things equal. First, looking only at Democratic voters, Davis beat out his opponents with 59.3 percent of the vote. Second, even if all of the registered Democrats who crossed over and voted for Lungren had voted for either Checchi or Harman, Davis still would have won. Among Democrats in the exit poll, Davis's margin of victory over Checchi, his nearest challenger, was 994 respondents. There were only 224 Democratic crossovers in this sample, so even if every one of them had voted for Checchi rather than Lungren, Davis would have won handily.

Another indication that the new rules did not affect the outcome is the pattern of preferences among voters who were not registered Democrats. Davis won a majority or near-majority of the votes of Republican crossovers, decline-to-states, and minor-party members, so it seems quite certain that these voters did not help elect a different candidate than the one Democrats themselves preferred.

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TABLE 5.3 Primary Vote Choice, by Party Registration
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times Primary Election Exit Poll, June 1998 (Los Angeles: Los Angeles Times Poll).
Vote for Democratic Gubernatorial Candidates
	Vote Choice
Party Registration	Checchi	Davis	Harman	Other Democrat	Total
Democrat	18.5%	59.3%	20.8%	1.4%	100%
Decline-to-state	18.0	59.3	21.7	1.0	100
Republican	29.5	49.7	19.1	1.7	100
Other party	29.7	51.7	16.0	2.5	100
TOTAL	20.8	57.4	20.4	1.4	100
Vote for Republican Senate Candidates
		Vote Choice
Party Registration		Fong	Issa	Other Republican	Total
Democrat		56.0%	31.5%	12.5%	100%
Decline-to-state		59.8	35.0	5.2	100
Republican		45.0	42.0	13.0	100
Other party		39.8	44.1	16.1	100
TOTAL		47.3	40.0	12.7	100

The U.S. Senate Race

According to the Los Angeles Times poll, Fong beat Issa in the Republican primary 47 percent to 40 percent, a result that overestimated Fong's actual margin of victory by about 2 percent. The lower panel of table 5.3 shows that Fong probably would have won under California's previous closed primary regime as well. First, Fong won among Republicans (i.e., the electorate in the hypothetical closed primary). At the same time, Fong's margin of victory among Republican voters (45 percent vs. 42 percent for Issa) was markedly smaller than it was among Democrats or decline-to-states. In this case, Republican crossovers, had they been limited to voting in the Republican race as a closed primary dictates, theoretically could have changed the outcome. In the exit poll sample, Fong beat Issa by only 156 votes among Republican voters; Republican crossovers numbered 219.

However, the interplay of two factors reduces the likelihood that these Republican crossovers would have changed the outcome: these voters were quite liberal (38 percent classified themselves as such), and Fong appeared more attractive than Issa to liberals. Among Fong voters, 17 percent classified

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themselves as liberals, 12 percent as conservatives, and the vast majority as moderates. The comparable percentages among Issa voters were 12 percent liberal and 40 percent conservative, with many fewer moderates. Thus, it appears that Republicans who voted for Boxer would have been more likely to vote for Fong than Issa in a closed primary (assuming constant turnout). Similarly, the 378 Democrats who voted for a Republican candidate could have changed the outcome of the Republican primary if they had favored Issa over Fong by a significant amount. However, Democrats, like Republicans, favored Fong and did so by even larger margins than Republicans did.^[14]

In sum, while crossover voting was substantial, it does not appear to have altered the outcome of either the gubernatorial or the senatorial race in California in 1998. The distribution of candidate preferences among crossover voters in each primary was similar to the distribution among all voters. Moreover, because both Davis and Fong garnered the support of their respective party faithful, they probably would have won in a closed primary as well.