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The Effect of Political Trust on the Presidential Vote, 1968–96

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Marc J. Hetherington
Marc J. Hetherington*
Affiliation:
Bowdoin College
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Abstract

Scholars have consistently demonstrated that no link exists between declining political trust and declining turnout, but they have paid less attention to the effect of trust on vote choice. In an era characterized by declining trust, the incumbent party has lost, and third parties have strongly contested, four of the last eight presidential elections. Such outcomes are historically anomalous. This study demonstrates that declining political trust affects vote choice, but the electoral beneficiary differs according to electoral context. In two-candidate races, politically distrustful voters support candidates from the nonincumbent major party. In races with three viable candidates, third-party alternatives benefit from declining political trust at the expense of both major parties.

Type
Articles
Information
American Political Science Review , Volume 93 , Issue 2 , June 1999 , pp. 311 - 326
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1999

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