Not All Votes Are Equal: Why Chasing The Radicals Is A Losing Strategy

In true multi-party elections like those that recently took place in France and the UK, the overlapping policies amongst different parties make for a complex interplay between parties and complicate political decision-making. Pick the wrong combination of policies and parties will see their voters flee to any number of competitors. This is less the case in the United States. While politics in America is technically a multiparty system, the percentage of the vote that goes to third-party candidates is typically so low that no third party has a real chance to win Electoral College votes much less the election and the US is largely considered to be a two-party system. 

Given the two-party dynamic, those familiar with Hotelling's Law would expect politicians in both the Democrat and the Republican parties to be more concerned with the center-left and center-right than with the fringes of their respective parties. The fact that this is not the case can be explained by the primary processes that prioritize the radical vote within each party. This needn’t be the case though.

Hotelling’s Law
Harold Hotelling (September 29, 1895 – December 26, 1973) was an American mathematical statistician and an economic theorist who proposed that it is rational for producers to make their products as similar as possible. This is best illustrated using a simple thought experiment. 

Suppose that there are two ice cream stands on a 1-kilometer-wide beach. If customers are evenly distributed along the beach and both stands offer the same products and processes it makes sense for the owners to station their stands at opposing ends of the beach, ¼ of a kilometer from the ends. Customers on the ends will go to the closest stand while those in the middle will be indifferent.

However, self-interests means that each owner will try to win more of the customers in the center and after some amount of time the setup will look like this:

Neither owner can afford to stay at the end of the beach once the other begins to move towards the center. This rule is often cited to explain why products from different companies so often look exactly the same (ex. coffee makers, ovens, dishwashers, etc.). 

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Given the simple logic of this, why does it not seem to apply to American presidential politics? Politics is obviously more complicated than an ice cream stand but it’s still about products. In this case, the products are the policies promoted by the parties (immigration, abortion, foreign policy, etc.). Why do both party candidates spend so much time chasing the fringes and ignoring the center? The answer, of course, is the primary process. 

Effect of Primaries
Democracy requires effort. While the effort involved in casting a vote for president might seem minor, but since 1980 the percentage of eligible people who cast a vote has ranged from 51.7% (1996) to 66.9% (2020). This is driven, in part, by political engagement. Typically, those at either end of the political spectrum are more engaged than those in the middle.  

In practice, this means that those on the fringes are more likely to vote in primaries. This forces primary candidates to focus on the policy desires of those in the wings at the expense of those in the center. We’ve all heard something along these lines: “now that he’s won the nomination will he move to the center?” This type of strategy makes sense from a Hotelling’s Law point of view. 

Once a candidate has locked up the nomination, he or she is free to move to the center would the progressive left vote for Trump? No. The worst thing that could happen in that case would be for them to stay home on election day. The voters at either end of the political spectrum are worth one vote. They vote for you, or they stay home. Voters in the middle are potentially worth two because if they don’t vote for you, they could potentially vote for the other candidate. 

Is this happening in 2024?
Biden and the Democrats do not seem to have learned the importance of the center. From their waffling on the Israeli-Hamas war to their failure to enforce the southern border to their desire to forgive student loans, the administration seems intent on bending over backward to placate the progressive wing of the party. Pleasing 6% of the electorate at the risk of alienating the other 54% that might vote for them seems like a questionable strategy. Especially considering that the 15% of the population who identify as “Stressed Sideliners” might flip to the Republicans rather than just stay home.

On the other side, recent news stories suggest that Trump may have learned a lesson from 2020 and is moderating his approach this year. Having delivered the Supreme Court to conservatives during his first term he feels less obliged to be staunchly pro-life and has taken the position that abortion is now in the hands of the States. Trump's credentials as a hardliner on immigration appear to have freed him to move (a little) to the center there as well. He still promises to deport illegal immigrants if elected this year but has softened his overall stance on immigration promising to “automatically grand green cards to foreign graduates of US colleges if re-elected.” 

Given that immigration has consistently been the top priority of US voters for months, moderating his approach may help him win more of that much needed moderate vote consisting of the “Ambivalent Right” and “Stressed Sidelineres.” Who knows, if the Democrats ignore the center long enough perhaps the “Outsider Left” may vote for Trump as well. After all, ignoring the working class during the 1970s drove that traditionally Democratic group into the arms of Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984 and George Bush in 1988. 

Moving to the center has long been a strategy of both parties but seems to have been forgotten in recent years. While Biden and the Democrats appear intent on ignoring the strategy, there is some evidence that Trump is adopting it again. Though perhaps not wholeheartedly. In addition to focusing on the largest portion of the population, turning to the center, there’s one more reason the parties should move to the center, it moderates politics. The gap between center-left and center-right is nothing compared to the gulf between the far-left and far-right and given the recent assassination attempt, it may not just be a smart move, it may be a vital one.

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