Linking Primary Voter Mindsets to General Election Enthusiasm

For decades scholars and pundits alike have been interested in questions about divisive presidential primaries. However, most analyses examine how campaigns cause these effects after the field has been winnowed – the implicit assumption is that negativity via events and advertising is consequential. While campaigns are likely the proximate cause of divisive primary effects, we argue that the behaviors involved—allowing displeasure with one election outcome to affect behavior in a subsequent election—demands attention to individual dispositions. Thus, we take a step back to consider what we miss when we overlook what is happening at the time of the large field, shining a spotlight on the mindsets of primary voters at the start of the process. To do so, we identify individuals who possess what we call the “divisive primary mindset,” which consists of two traits: (1) the degree to which they prefer one candidate over all others (“preference exclusivity”), and (2) the extent to which their affect for a candidate is indistinguishable from their assessment of that candidate’s electability (“wish fulfillment”). Using an original, nation-wide panel following Democratic voters from the 2020 primaries through the general election, we find that individuals with both these traits were more likely to be late deciders in the general, less likely to participate in activities outside of voting, and more likely to defect from Biden. We test the robustness of these findings to candidate-centric explanations and discuss the importance of understanding campaign dynamics in an era of hyper-partisanship and nationalized politics.