 The Divisive Primary Revisited: Party Activists in Iowa*Donald Bruce Johnson and James R. Gibson American Political Science Review, 1974, vol. 68, issue 1, 67-77 Abstract: This study was conducted to test the frequently made assertion that primary elections are divisive among party activists who participate in primary and subsequent general election campaigns. Analysis of data collected from 209 campaign workers personally identified by five candidates in two vigorously contested races for Congress in Iowa's First District indicated that the activists were an elite group on whom the primary had a divisive impact that was particularly notable among those who supported candidates who lost the primary. The alienation felt by many respondents who worked for losers in both parties adversely affected their general party support, voting, and the willingness to perform the many conventional activities necessary to a general election campaign, but it did not appear to have a substantial influence on the general election. Generally, those who defected were less experienced and less strongly identified with their parties than those who remained active. Moreover, most of the antagonism may be limited to the single general election; eighty per cent of all participants in the study expected to be as active or more active in future campaigns. Date: 1974 Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:68:y:1974:i:01:p:67-77_23 Access Statistics for this article More articles in American Political Science Review from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK. |
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