How Sophistication Affected The 2000 Presidential Vote: Traditional Sophistication Measures Versus Conceptualization.

UNITED States presidential election, 2000; VOTING; EDUCATIONAL background; POLITICAL affiliation; POLITICAL knowledge; PARTISANSHIP; GORE, Albert, 1948-; BUSH, George W. (George Walker), 1946-; DEMOCRATS (United States); REPUBLICANS; POLITICAL attitudes

The 2000 Presidential vote is modeled using voter sophistication as a source of heterogeneity. Three measures of sophistication are employed: education, knowledge, and the levels of conceptualization. Interacting them with vote predictors shows little meaningful variation. However, removing the assumption of ordinality from the levels of conceptualization uncovers considerable heterogeneity in the importance of the vote predictors in explaining the vote. Thus, different sophistication measures should not be treated as equivalent, nor combined as if they are equivalent. Few of the issue and candidate components are relevant to those with a less sophisticated understanding of politics. The opposite partisan attachments of the two most sophisticated groups suggest that sophistication's impact on the vote can be confounded by partisanship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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