IDEOLOGICAL EXTREMITY, ISSUE DISTANCE, AND VOTER DEFECTION

The bulk of the literature rejects the argument that Democratic failur e in presidential elections between 1968 and 1988 had an ideological b asis. Analysis of the interplay of respondents' own issue positions wi th their perceptions of the parties/candidates suggests a different an d rather complex picture. Between 1968 and 1980, the partisan/ideologi cal cores of the two parties-liberal Democrats and conservative Republ icans-behave quite differently: only moderately different defection ra tes between the most liberal Democrats and most conservative Republica ns increase considerably as one moves from the relevant ideological ex treme to the center. Placement of parties/candidates in issue space ex plains this asymmetry during this initial period of Democratic decline : the Democratic party/candidate is perceived as far to the left, with Democratic identifiers positioned midway between the electoral altern atives; Republicans identifiers, in contrast, are to the right of both parties/candidates, but very close to their own. Beginning in 1980, t he Reagan candidacy/administration push popular images of the Republic ans to the right, eliminating their ideological advantage and forcing us to look elsewhere for the basis of continued Democratic losses.