CONCLUSION
A broad array of evidence indicates that crossover voting in the June 1998 blanket primary was largely sincere. Party mischief was minimal; moreover, crossover voting did not affect the outcome of the gubernatorial and U.S. Senate races. Therefore, this election was no apocalypse for the parties. Neither was it an Eden for the blanket primary's proponents: 1998 did not produce moderate, centrist candidates in these races. The blanket primary's most important impact may be how it prefigures the general election. Those involved in the 1998 campaign expressed a similar sentiment. Davis's campaign manager, Garry South, has said, "For all practical purposes, the general was over on primary night, barring some cataclysmic
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event or huge mistake on our part" (Lubenow 1999, 147). Doing well overall, not just among the registered voters of one's own party, thus can be critical. If this is so, an additional set of research questions emerges. How do the results of the primary election affect voters' perceptions of the viability of the candidates who emerge? Moreover, at an institutional level, how does the need to fuse partisan and more general appeals even before the primary shape the nature of campaigns and campaigning?| Dependent Variable | |
| Crossover Voting | Coded 1 if a respondent intends to vote for (or stated that they voted for) a candidate of the opposing major party, as defined by the respondent's party identification (or registration), and 0 otherwise. |
| Independent Variables | |
| Strength of Partisanship | Coded 1 (independent) to 4 (strong partisan). This was constructed by "folding" the standard, seven-point party identification scale. |
| Liberalism | Coded 1 (strong conservative) to 7 (strong liberal). |
| Prop 226 Vote | Coded 1 (yes) and 0 (no). A yes vote indicates, support for Prop 226, which mandated that unions get the permission of members before spending their dues on political purposes, such as advertisements during campaigns. |
| Prop 227 Vote | Coded 1 (yes) and 0 (no). A yes vote indicates support for Prop 227, which was designed to restructure, and largely do away with, bilingual education in California public schools. |
| Gender | Coded 1 (female) and 0 (male). |
| Protestant, Catholic, Latino, Black, Asian | Coded 1 if respondent identifies as a member of religious/ethnic group, and 0 otherwise. |
| Age | Coded 1 (18–24), 2 (25–29), 3 (30–39), 4 (40–49), 5 (50–59), 6 (60 and older). |
| Education | Coded 1 (eighth grade or less), 2 (some high school), 3 (high school graduate), 4 (trade/ vocational school), 5 (1–2 years of college), 6 (3–4 years of college, no degree), 7 (college graduate), 8 (5–6 years of college), 9 (master's degree), 10 (graduate work past master's). |
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| Income | Coded 1 (under $20,000), 2 ($20–40,000), 3 ($40–60,000), 4 ($60–80,000), and 5 (more than $80,000). |
| Union Member | Coded 1 if respondent or a member of respondent's family is a union member, and coded 0 otherwise. |