2025-03-25
1 小时 0 分钟When Donald Trump said I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn't lose any voters,
he was ostensibly making a joke about the loyalty of his followers.
But another way to read it is that it's a revealing comment on how he thinks about voter psychology,
that they care little about personal virtue and are with him for his other qualities.
Deciphering voter psychology can feel like an insurmountable exercise.
If you talk to individual people about why they voted for their chosen candidate,
their answers range from reasonable to incomprehensible.
In a new paper,
University of Calgary political scientist Jack Lucas and his co authors investigate this through survey evidence.
Their interests lie in both how voters see themselves and crucially,
how politicians see their voters.
In face to face interviews with almost 1,000 elected politicians across 11 countries,
as well as survey data from over 12,000 citizens,
the paper seeks to map how voters think across several key dimensions.
Unfortunately, none of that data includes the United States,
for reasons we'll get into, but it's still relevant to understanding the American electorate.
The paper seeks to understand whether voters vote based on policy or identity.
Are they short term or long term oriented?
Do they tend to be single issue or multi issue voters?
Are they pocketbook oriented?