[Go to the web site below to view the two charts,
Ideological Composition of People Voting Republican
(Democratic), 1984-2010 -- among the most illuminating
graphics you're likely to see in quite some time. --
moderator.]

Why the Republicans Resist Compromise

By Nate Silver
July 7, 2011
http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/07/why-the-g-o-p-cannot-compromise

The chart that I'm going to show you is one of the more
important ones that we've presented at FiveThirtyEight
in some time. It helps explain a lot of what's going on
in American politics today, from the negotiations over
the federal debt ceiling to the Republican presidential
primaries. And it's pretty simple, really, although it
took me some time to track down the data.

Here's what the chart will show: The Republican Party is
dependent, to an extent unprecedented in recent
political history, on a single ideological group. That
group, of course, is conservatives. It isn't a bad thing
to be in favor with conservatives: by some definitions
they make up about 40 percent of voters. But the terms
`Republican' and `conservative' are growing closer and
closer to being synonyms; fewer and fewer
nonconservatives vote Republican, and fewer and fewer
Republican voters are not conservative.

The chart, culled from exit poll data, shows the
ideological disposition of those people who voted
Republican for the House of Representatives in the
elections of 1984 through 2010. Until fairly recently,
about half of the people who voted Republican for
Congress (not all of whom are registered Republicans)
identified themselves as conservative, and the other
half as moderate or, less commonly, liberal. But lately
the ratio has been skewing: in last year's elections, 67
percent of those who voted Republican said they were
conservative, up from 58 percent two years earlier and
48 percent ten years ago.

This might seem counterintuitive. Didn't the Republicans
win a sweeping victory last year? They did, but it had
mostly to do with changes in turnout. Whereas in 2008,
conservatives made up 34 percent of those who cast
ballots, that number shot up to 42 percent last year.
Moderates, on the other hand, made up just 38 percent of
those who voted in 2010, down from 44 percent in 2008
(the percentage of liberals was barely changed). The
2010 election was the first since exit polls began in
1976 in which a plurality of the voters said they were
conservatives rather than moderates.

This was fortunate for Republicans, because they lost
moderate voters to Democrats by 13 percentage points
(and liberals by 82 percentage points). Had the
ideological composition of the electorate been the same
in 2010 as in 2008 or 2006, the Republicans and
Democrats would have split the popular vote for the
House about evenly - but as it was, Republicans won the
popular vote for the House by about 7 percentage points
and gained 63 seats.

Many of the G.O.P. victories last year were extremely
close. I calculate that, had the national popular vote
been divided evenly, Democrats would have lost just 27
seats instead of 63. Put differently, the majority of
Republican gains last year were probably due to changes
in relative turnout rather than people changing their
minds about which party's approach they preferred.

Some care is called for here: Political ideology is not
an immutable characteristic, and some people who called
themselves conservative in 2010 might have called
themselves moderate in 2008. Most polls have found a
modest increase in the number of people in the broader
electorate (not just those who voted) who say they are
conservative.

But this only explains a small part of the difference in
2010. For the rest, we need to look toward the so-called
enthusiasm gap.

That gap is commonly understood as the average
Republican having been more likely to cast a vote in
2010 than the average Democrat. That's true as far as it
goes. But on top of the gap between Democrats and
Republicans, there was a another enthusiasm gap within
the Republican party, cleaving conservatives, who were
very likely to turn out, from moderate Republicans, who
were no more likely to vote than Democrats were.

The data for this assertion comes from a Pew Research
poll conducted just a few days before the election. The
poll was quite accurate - it predicted a 6-point
Republican margin in the popular vote for the House,
almost exactly in line with what actually happened.

Pew is among the most transparent polling organizations,
and their entire data set for this particular poll is
available for public consumption. I looked at the
percentage of people from various groups who were given
at least 6 points on Pew's 7-point scale of voting
propensity - who I defined as "likely voters."

Among conservatives who are either registered as
Republicans or who lean toward the Republican party,
about 3 out of 4 were likely to have voted in 2010, the
Pew data indicated. The fraction of likely voters was
even higher among those who called themselves "very
conservative:" 79 percent.

By contrast, only about half of moderate or liberal
Republicans were likely voters, according to Pew's
model. That is about the same as the figure for
Democrats generally: - about half of them were likely
voters, with little difference among conservative,
moderate and liberal Democrats.

So the enthusiasm gap did not so much divide Republicans
from Democrats; rather, it divided conservative
Republicans from everyone else. According to the Pew
data, while 64 percent of all Republicans and
Republican-leaning independents identify as
conservative, the figure rises to 73 percent for those
who actually voted in 2010.

This is why Republican politicians find it difficult to
compromise on something like the debt ceiling, even when
it might seem they have substantial incentive to do so.
Republicans are still fairly unpopular - only about 40
percent of Americans have a favorable view of the party,
which is barely better than their standing in 2006 or
2008 (although Democrats have become significantly less
popular since then). As long as conservative Republicans
are much more likely to vote than anyone else, the party
can fare well despite that unpopularity, as it obviously
did in 2010. But it means that Republican members of
Congress have a mandate to remain steadfast to the
conservatives who are responsible for electing them.

Presidential elections are different: they tend to have
a more equivocal turnout. The G.O.P. can turn out its
base but it has not converted many other voters to its
cause, and President Obama's approval ratings remain
passable although not good. The Republicans will need
all their voters to turn out - including their moderates
- to be an even-money bet to defeat him.

If a relatively moderate candidate like Mitt Romney is
nominated, that probably won't be a major problem. But
there is a significant chance that the party will
nominate a someone like Michele Bachmann instead.

Imagine that Ms. Bachmann has won the Iowa caucuses
while Mr. Romney has taken the New Hampshire primary,
and the nomination is essentially up for grabs between
them. As the contest shifts to a key state like Ohio or
Pennsylvania, suppose that conservative Republicans
split 60-30 in Ms. Bachmann's favor (with a few voters
opting for a hanger-on like Ron Paul), while moderate
Republicans go 80-15 for Mr. Romney. Who is going to
win?

Turnout would be decisive. If two conservative
Republicans cast ballots for every moderate Republican -
roughly the ratio in 2008 - Mr. Romney would prevail by
a couple of points. But if the turnout looks more like
2010, and there are three conservative Republicans at
the polls for every moderate Republican, Ms. Bachmann
would win by about six percentage points:

So the presidential race gives Republicans some
incentive to engage their moderate voters sooner rather
than later - but at the same time, moderate voters are
not who elected them to Congress. The poor economy has
bought the party some slack, but there is still
potential for disaster: Either the nomination goes to
someone like Ms. Bachmann, who would have a difficult
time winning over moderates and independents, or someone
like Mr. Romney wins the nomination but alienates the
conservatives along the way.

Is the same kind of phenomenon occurring on the
Democratic side? To some extent, yes: Back in 1984, just
26 percent of the people voting Democratic for Congress
said they were liberals, but that fraction has now risen
to 41 percent.

Nevertheless, moderate Democrats are still the plurality
of the party. And there are even a fair number of
conservative Democrats - certainly more than there are
liberal Republicans - despite the geographical
realignment of the parties in the early 1990s, in which
many conservative southerners switched allegiance. The
Democratic Party is intrinsically more pluralistic than
the G.O.P. - a characteristic that may be
disadvantageous when it comes to governing, but can give
the party an edge in elections.

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