PARTY ELITES, IDEOLOGICAL VOTERS, AND DIVIDED PARTY GOVERNMENT

Do voters consciously split their tickets in order to ''balance'' the national government between the two major political parties, as some t heories of divided government contend they do? Or do ''sincere'' and i deologically consistent voters split their ballots in response to elit e behavior and party cleavages? Focusing on the 1988 erection, the las t time divided government was the direct result of split-ticket voting , we find that most split-ticket voters in national erections are ideo logically conservative in their policy views. These conservative voter s split their tickets in favor of the Republican presidential candidat e and a Democratic House candidate they perceive to be similarly conse rvative. Meanwhile, the smaller proportion of voters who split for the Democratic presidential candidate and a Republican House candidate ar e ideologically liberal, and they respond to House Republicans perceiv ed as similarly liberal. Finally, we discuss the implications of both our theory and our findings for the 1994 Republican midterm victories.