Collaborative Research on the Reform Party and Major Party Change

1992-96年的选举周期有几个显著的发展：1992年，罗斯·佩罗获得了内战以来第二大第三党选票；1994年，共和党40年来首次赢得参众两院多数席位；1996年，改革党作为佩罗运动的机构延伸出现。在第二次竞选中，佩罗的得票率下降到略高于8%，但他仍然设法成为共和党成立以来第一位在连续两次总统选举中获得5%以上选票的第三党候选人。根据我们对这些选举的研究完成的工作，我们得出结论，这些引人注目的事件是密切相关的。佩罗1992年的选区为主要政党提供了一个几乎不可抗拒的机会目标，共和党人能够更成功地利用这一机会，特别是在1994年。通过阐述和测试第三方支持理论，并将其与主要政党变革联系起来，我们开发了微观行为证据来解释第三方运动，如佩罗的运动，如何带来主要政党变革。简而言之，该理论假设了一个积极的或“拉动”的成分，它源于对第三方候选人的吸引，以及一个消极的或“推动”的成分，它对主要政党的替代方案做出反应，以解释第三方激进分子的支持。在各种测试中，我们发现了强有力的证据，表明在1992年和1996年，潜在的积极分子既有推动力，也有拉力因素。例如，在这些问题上，佩罗吸引了支持，因为他接近问题，以及那些认为改革党分享了他们最重要的政策优先事项的活动人士。与此同时，佩罗的支持者们被激活了，因为他们相信最好的主要政党替代方案与他们的利益相去甚远，因为民主党和共和党候选人在这些问题上缺乏选择，以及主要政党没有分享他们的优先事项的看法。这种支持模式是理解1992年至1996年期间对佩罗的支持下降的基础。此外，我们利用我们在主要政党的提名候选人方面的工作来表明，与1992年佩罗动员有关的结转和溢出效应可以帮助解释1994年和1996年支持者进入共和党的行动。我们寻求支持，以便在2000年选举期间继续我们关于改革党的工作。该设计要求在2000年大选期间继续我们1992-94-96年度潜在的佩罗活动家小组。我们还有两个始于1996年的新的改革样本，我们将其用作2000年新小组的基础：改革贡献者的全国样本，以及党于1996年8月进行的佩罗-拉姆“邮寄初选”的全国参与者样本。1996年，我们还对民主党全国委员会和共和党全国委员会的贡献者进行了调查，为我们提供了与改革贡献者调查直接可比的全国样本。在2000年大选之后，我们立即回顾了改革样本和两个主要政党的样本。这些数据收集让我们在关键时刻史无前例地接触到历史性的第三方运动，当时它面临着佩罗统治该党后的第一次选举。通过扩大研究，我们能够考察改革党的发展和制度化，或者说它的衰落和消亡。无论如何，我们可以研究1996年改革支持者在随后的主要政党竞选中的参与情况，以及改革党对两个主要政党的影响。

The 1992-96 election cycle saw several remarkable developments: in 1992, Ross Perot received the second largest third-party vote since the Civil War; in 1994, the Republicans won majorities of the House and Senate for the first time in forty years; and in 1996, the Reform Party emerged as the institutional extension of the Perot movement. In his second run, Perot's vote declined to just over eight percent, but he still managed to become the first third-party candidate to win more than five percent in two successive presidential elections since the formation of the Republican Party. Based on work completed from our research on these elections, we conclude that these remarkable events are closely related. Perot's 1992 constituency presented the major parties with a nearly irresistible target of opportunity, which the Republicans were able to capitalize on much more successfully than were the Decemorats, especially in 1994. By articulating and testing a theory of third-party support and linking it to major-party change, we have developed micro-behavioral evidence to explain how a third-party movement, such as that of Perot, can bring about major-party change. Briefly, the theory posits a positive, or "pull," component that results from attraction to the third-party candidate, and a negative, or "push," component that reacts against the major-party alternatives to explain third-party activist support. In a variety of tests, we find strong evidence that potential activists were motivated by both push and pull factors in 1992 and 1996. For example, on the issues, Perot attracted support because of issue proximity to him, and from activists who felt that the Reform Party shared their most important policy priorities. At the same time, supporters were activated for Perot by their conviction that the best major-party alternative was remote from their interests, by the lack of choice between the Democratic and Republican candidates on the issues, and by the perception that the major parties did not share their issue priorities. This model of support serves as a basis for understanding the decline in support for Perot between 1992 and 1996. In addition, we draw on our work on nomination candidacies in the major parties to show that carryover and spillover effects linked to mobilization by Perot in 1992 can help to explain movement by supporters into the Republican Party in 1994 and 1996. We seek support to continue our work on the Reform Party through the 2000 election. The design calls for continuing our 1992-94-96 panel of potential Perot activists through the 2000 election. We also have two fresh Reform samples that began in 1996 and that we use as the basis of a new panel in 2000: a national sample of Reform contributors, and a national sample of participants in the Perot-Lamm "primary by mail" conducted by the Party in August, 1996. In 1996, we also conducted surveys of DNC and RNC contributors that give us directly comparable national samples to the Reform contributor survey. We panel back to both of the Reform samples and the two major-party samples immediately after the 2000 election. These data collections give us unprecedented access to an historic third-party movement at a critical point when it faces the first election following Perot's hegemony over the Party. By extending the study, we are able to examine the development and institutionalization of the Reform Party, or its decline and demise. In any event, we can study the involvement of 1996 Reform supporters in subsequent major-party campaigns, and the effect of the Reform Party on the two major parties.