How US libertarians vote
A while ago, regular commenter JC raised the question of how a libertarian would vote in America. Interesting, the Cato Institute has been doing work on the same question.
In their paper called “The Libertarian Vote“, David Boaz and David Kirby first look through various surveys to find the size of the libertarian vote. While only 1-2% of Americans self-identify as libertarians, the survey responses indicated that over 10% of Americans could be considered broadly libertarian.
People who agreed that “government is trying to do too many things” and “government should not favor any particular set of values” and “federal government has too much power” made up 13%. People who said that “the less government the better” and “the free-market can handle these [today's complex economic] problems” and “we should be more tolerant [of people who choose alternative lifesyles]” made up 13% of adults and 15% of voters. People who indicated that “government is almost always wasteful and inefficient” and “government regulation of business usually does more harm than good” and “I worry the government is getting too involved in the issue of moarlity” made up 14%.
The paper goes on to consider how these libertarians normally vote. The short answer is that libertarians have a Republican bias but they are relatively independent and are swinging voters. The percent of libertarians voting for the Republicans in the last five Presidential elections has been 74% (1988), 35% (1992), 58% (1996), 72% (2000) and 59% (2004)*.
As the paper notes, one interesting tendency is that libertarians warm towards low-tax talking candidates (Bush snr 1988 & Bush jnr 2000) and then swing away from them significantly when they turn out to be big-government conservatives (1992 & 2004). Over 2 million libertarians switched from Republican to Democrat in 2004. Reasons cited included Bush’s record on federal spending, centralisation of education, expansion of entitlements, the war in Iraq, executive authority, the federal mariage amendment, and civil liberties infringements.
The swinging nature of the libertarian vote can also been seen in the House & Senate votes. From 2000 to 2004 libertarian support for Republicans in the House dropped from 73% to 53% and in the Senate from 73% to 54%, with a matching increase in support for the Democrats**.
The conclusion is that libertarians are a large voting block (bigger than soccer mums & NASCAR dads) who are relatively swinging voters. This should make them an important target for politicians, but they have been rather neglected by candidates. One reason is probably that libertarians are not as politicaly active. As Boaz & Kirby say:
“Fundamentally, people who want something from government — whether it’s farm subsidies, national health insurance, faith-based initiatives, or bans on your neigbours’ activities — are more likely to be politically active than those who just want to be left alone to live their lives and run their businesses”
But this might be changing. According to Boaz & Kirby the libertarian vote is increasing (from 9% to 13% since 1990) and libertarians are relatively younger than conservatives and liberals (in the US sense, meaning social democrat). Interestingly, the younger libertarians are also less likely to vote for the Republicans, with only 24% of 18-29 year old libertarians supporting Bush in 2004. With the libertarian vote growing and becoming less stable, their relative electoral importance is rising. Only time will tell whether politicians take the hint and start offering more libertarian-friendly policies.
——————————————————-
* This doesn’t imply that the Democrats got the remainder of the vote. In 1992 and 1996 a significant minority of libertarians voted for minor party candidates. It is worth noting at this point that the US system is different to the Australian system in that Australia has preferential voting so a vote for a minor party is not “wasted” but actually allows you to vote twice. Consequently, the Australian system is much more friendly to minor parties while the US Libertarian and Green parties struggle to get more than 1% of the vote.
** Other interesting things to note about libertarians is that they tend to be richer, more likely to own shares, better educated and less religious than the average American. They have a lower-than-average opinion for christian fundamentalists, environmentalists and labour unions but a higher-than-average level of support for gays & lesbians. They are relatively more interested in public affairs, more politically independent and have a preference for divided government.
14 Comments
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
-
Recent Comments
Libertarians and ele… on Libertarians and elections (an… 
Dom Vasta on Libertarians and elections (an… 
Shem Bennett on Libertarians and elections (an… 
'Nuke' Gray on Libertarians and elections (an… Dom Vasta on Libertarians and elections (an… 
TerjeP (say tay-a) on Libertarians and elections (an… TerjeP (say tay-a) on Libertarians and elections (an… 'Nuke' Gray on Libertarians and elections (an… Shem Bennett on Libertarians and elections (an… 
Brendan Halfweeg on The Santa Claus Governmen…
Catallaxy Files- Open Forum: February 11, 2012 February 10, 2012 Sinclair Davidson
- Not all recessions are caused by the Fed February 10, 2012More middle of the night blogging. My economics is classical. The almost perfect overlay of my own book can be found in a series of notes taken by Nicholas Kaldor at the LSE in 1927-29 from lectures delivered by the great American economist, Allyn Young. These notes were only published around a decade ago but [...]Steve Kates
- Where’s Romney? February 10, 2012It is quite extraordinary to watch the American political process up close. Now, I admit I have been busy and I don’t watch much of the television and do not read a lot of the press. But before I arrived the thing I did want to do was see more of Mitt Romney since from [...]Steve Kates
- inCISe
- More on PHI rebate means test February 10, 2012When I wrote in Incise yesterday, ‘Rebate should not be means tested,’ I did not expect events to move quite as quickly as they have. The government seems confident it has the numbers to get the means test through. I wouldn’t be surprised if Rob Oakshott and Andrew Wilkie have indeed swallowed the government’s nonsensical arguments, but it will be interestin […]Robert Carling
- Quiggin versus Carling and Kirchner February 9, 2012John Quiggin accuses Robert Carling and I of ‘an appalling breach of elementary standards of research’ for not acknowledging that Alberto Alesina’s work on the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus and consolidations is ‘highly controversial.’ In fact, we referenced Alesina’s work precisely because it has featured so prominently in public debate, including in the […]Stephen Kirchner
- Police going too far February 9, 2012According to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, police are lecturing parents for letting their children walk to the shops or catch a bus on their own, with senior police saying such incidents will be reported to the Department of Community Services (DOCs) if a child is considered at risk. But when is a child ‘at risk’? One mother was told it was inappr […]Sara Hudson
- More on PHI rebate means test February 10, 2012
- IPA news
- Let European dogs lie February 9, 2012Australians will be surprised to learn that, apparently, the federal government now has responsibility to help the city of...
- It's time to bring back the thrift February 9, 2012Ted Baillieu plans to shave 3600 jobs from Victoria's bloated public service. The state of Wisconsin in the US, with a...
- We'll huff, we'll puff, we'll blow the budget into surplus February 8, 2012Bill Clinton famously said, "It's the economy, stupid". So it is. Unsuccessful politicians might be inclined to argue,...
- Let European dogs lie February 9, 2012
A concise and informative analysis.
It would seem that libertarian voters are destined to be always disappointed in which ever party they vote into office, for every government will spend and regulate more than than a libertarian considers reasonable.
On the up side, a well-exercised libertarian vote serves to remind big government parties of either persuasion not to stray too far from the fundamental principles of freedom.
Earlier comments about the Libertarian Party suggest the reason libertarians fail to translate their views into electoral outcomes is a failure of electoral tactics. That’s a lesson we all need to heed. Electoral success requires money, people and ideas, in that order. Usually they are available in the reverse order.
The Libertarian Party in the US has plenty of good people (they are the third largest party by membership) and enough money. Their biggest problem is the non-preferential voting system which makes it extremely hard for a third party to ever break through the two-party system. Other minor American parties (Greens, Reform, Constitution etc) face a similar problem.
In Australia we have a voting system that is relatively friendly to minor parties, but unfortunately we currently lack the members and money.
Based on those figures, LDP has a constituency roughly the size of the Greens. There’s hope for you yet!
At the last US election four local areas voted to adopt “Instant Runoff Voting” for the appointment of local officials. There is a push to get preferencial voting on the agenda in the USA and it is making slow inroads at the local government level and for elections to student representative bodies at universities. When the major US parties start using IRV to choose their candidates instead of primaries then I think IRV will really start to make bigger inroads into the US system. However the major parties have nothing to gain from IRV so it will likely remain a local government innovation for now.
IRV has not delivered many minor parties into the lower house in Australia. Our lower house is still dominated by the two major parties and most of the balance goes to the Nationals. IRV is an improvement over plurality voting however it still has flaws and it does not seem to end the duopoly nature of democratic government.
Where we get minor parties making a splash in Australia is in the senate. And the senate voting system in Australia is not one I would try and sell other countries on. In New Zealand they actually have a libertarian in parliament (Rodney Hide) but that is a product of MMP not IRV.
Fatfingers: Those numbers apply to the US which has a significant history of Libertarian thinking, and was founded by Libertarians (as opposed to Australia which was founded by mercantilists.
There are many high-profile US op-ed writers and elected politicians who identify as Libertarians. In Australia we have nobody. (Except John H. and maybe Andrew Norton who sometimes make the papers).
Andrew Norton does not self identify as a libertarian. So that leaves John Humphreys.
And he has spent the last two years running around asia and europe! Lazy bastard.
But to be fair, there is also economic academics Alex Robson, Jason Potts and a few others. And if we count classical liberals (who are identical to moderate libertarians) then we have Andrew back as well as Peter Saunders and other good thinkers.
But I agree with the general point that the US is more libertarian than Australia or any other country.
That’s why I said “maybe”. I think Andrew self-identifies as “classical liberal” though. Ask John for the difference.
John says there is no difference.
That’s what I meant…
I thought so.
Actually I don’t think i asked the question of how a Libertarian would vote in the US, as I already knew the answer.
Libertarians by and large should be attracted to the GOP platform. Unfortunately it’s the representatives that don’t seem to want to follow the parties manifesto. There are a few exceptions. Floyd Flake is a GOP rep. who really is a libertarian. Newt Gingrich also has strong libertarian leanings. Bob Barr the bogeyman of the Clinton impeachment has resigned the GOP and joined the US libertarian party.
the GOP and and abortion? The big issue with quite few Republicans was the way it was introduced, that is, through judicial fiat. Even I am against abortion on the basis of how the Supreme court acted.
I thought you asked the question because you knew the answer.
And in contrast to your reading of the results… I think the most important conclusion is that libertarians are swinging voters not overly commited to either major party.