Centrism vs. polarization in Canada and the U.S.
The relationship between political ideology and vote intention
This is the second part of a three-part series on political ideology in Canada and the United States. In the first part, I showed where Canadians and Americans place themselves on the political spectrum (a left-right spectrum in Canada, and a liberal-conservative spectrum in the U.S.). In this part, I will look at the relationship between political ideology and vote intention.
It’s hardly surprising that, in Canada, NDP supporters are more likely than others to place themselves on the left, and Conservative supporters are more likely to place themselves on the right. But what’s much more striking is that the majority of the supporters of each of the three main federal parties place themselves in the centre.
These results add some nuance to how we think of each party’s political base. Certainly, the makeup of the NDP’s group of supporters is weighted more to the left, while that of the Conservative Party is weighted more to the right (Liberal supporters appear more evenly distributed across the spectrum). And those on the left and right ends of the spectrum may be much more active within the respective parties they support, in terms of activities such as taking out a party membership, going to local meetings or making donations. Nonetheless, the majority of each party’s pool of voters are found in the political centre. This places a limit on how politically one-sided their appeals to voters can be.
Compare this to the pattern in the United States. The largest portion of the Democratic Party’s constituency are liberals; conversely, a majority of Republican Party supporters are conservatives. True, each party also draws a significant part of its support from the centre. Nonetheless, right-leaning voters make up twice as large a proportion of the Republican Party’s supporters than is the case for the Conservative Party in Canada. Similarly, left-leaning voters make up more than twice as large a proportion of the Democratic Party’s supporters than is the case for the Liberal Party in Canada.
Put another way, the relationship between ideology and vote intention in Canadian politics encourages the main political parties to appeal to (and compete for) the same group of voters (those in the centre). In the U.S., there’s more of an incentive the parties to appeal to different groups of voters – with the result being a type of politics that feels more polarized.
Now let’s take a look at things the other way around: instead of asking where each party’s supporters place themselves on the political spectrum, we can ask how people on the left, in the centre and on the right of the spectrum intend to vote. Here’s how that looks in Canada.
At first glance, the results are somewhat as expected: those on the left are more likely to vote NDP; those on the right are more likely to vote Conservative. But, overall, the pattern is hardly a one-sided one. The NDP only manages to appeal to one in three voters on the left; the Liberal Party is just as popular among this group. The centre lends some support to each of the three main parties – and also includes a significant number of undecided voters. The right, naturally, leans to the Conservatives – yet that party attracts the support of fewer than one in two right-leaning Canadians. The Liberals, NDP and Greens combined attract just as much support from the right as do the Conservatives.
Again, the contrast with the U.S. helps to bring the significance of this into focus.
Three in four American liberals intend to vote for the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee; more than four in five conservatives intend to vote for the Republican candidate. The centre is more evenly divided (and includes a larger share of undecided voters).
Part of this is a feature of the two-party system in the United States. But that’s the point: Canada’s multi-party system serves in part to break up the monopoly that any one party has on the left or the right. Voters on both ends of the spectrum are more likely to feel they have options. This makes Canadian politics potentially more fluid (or less rigid), as voters on the left and the right – and not just the centre – are more open to shifting their allegiances. Which, again, broadens the focus of each party and constrains the extent of political polarization.
Here’s one more way to look at this, combining the two survey questions: in the U.S. 23 percent of adults are conservative Republicans, and 19 percent are liberal Democrats. This compares to only seven percent of Canadians who are right-leaning Conservatives, and six percent who are left-leaning Liberals (as well as another 6% who are left-leaning New Democrats).
The finding that not all of those on the left in Canada support progressive parties, and not all of those on the right support conservative ones, hints at the fact that “left” and “right” mean something different to people than do the labels “New Democrat,” “Liberal” or “Conservative.” That will be the subject of the final part of the series.
The findings featured in this post are from the Canadian portion of the 2023 AmericasBarometer. The AmericasBarometer is a biennial comparative survey of democratic values and behaviours that covers countries in North, Central and South America, as well as a significant number of countries in the Caribbean (the 2023 survey covers 25 countries). The project is led by the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) at Vanderbilt University.
The survey is the most comprehensive source of information about support for democracy in Canada. Follow the Environics Institute to catch more reports from this survey.
The 2023 AmericasBarometer in Canada survey was conducted by the Environics Institute for Survey Research, in partnership with LAPOP at Vanderbilt University. It was conducted online with a representative sample of 2,500 Canadians (aged 18 and over) between July 20 and August 4, 2023. The author is solely responsible for any errors of presentation or interpretation.
AmericasBarometer data for the United States were supplied by the Latin American Public Opinion Project at Vanderbilt University, which takes no responsibility for any interpretation of the data. The 2023 survey in the U.S. was conducted online with a representative sample of 1,500 Americans (aged 18 and over) between July 21 and July 26, 2023 (note that the ideological scale question was only asked to 993 respondents).
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