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    Does Policy Impact Voting Behavior?: How the Affordable Care Act Has Impacted Electoral Outcomes

    Cover for Does Policy Impact Voting Behavior?: How the Affordable Care Act Has Impacted Electoral Outcomes
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    View/Open: Reppert_georgetown_0076M_14598.pdf (395kB) Bookview

    Creator
    Reppert, Caroline
    Advisor
    Morrison, Donna R
    ORCID
    0000-0002-5863-4888
    Abstract
    After its passage in 2010, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) became a lightening rode around which each major political party rallied either in fierce defense or fervent opposition. However, as individuals have begun to feel the impacts of the policy in their daily lives, the popularity of the program has slowly increased. After unsuccessful attempts to repeal the ACA, the Democratic Party chose to center their 2018 midterm campaign strategy around protecting the law. After their sweeping success, many journalists published articles analyzing the effectiveness of this choice. Using data from the American National Election Study’s cumulative data set, this study analyzes the relationship between the Affordable Care Act and electoral outcomes in more depth. Specifically, I have used data from the 2008, 2012, and 2016 presidential elections to control for the impact of demographic and other political factors in order to evaluate if attitudes towards health care (particularly the Affordable Care Act) impact voting behavior. The results of the probit models indicate that opinions on government involvement in the health care system impact voters’ choice of presidential candidate. Surprisingly, multivariate analyses show that the more likely a voter is to support government involvement in the health care system, the more likely they are to vote for a Republican. This could be due to the fact that there are several government health care plans that disproportionally serve seniors, who are more likely to support conservative candidates. Other policy areas that consistently impacted one’s choice of presidential candidate in a statistically significant manner were attitudes towards government spending, Muslims, the LGBTQ community, and feminists. If it is the case that individuals who traditionally vote Republican are also in favor government involvement in health care, than pledging to protect the Affordable Care Act could continue to present opportunities for Democrats to swing voters that may not traditionally support the party.
    Description
    M.P.P.
    Permanent Link
    http://hdl.handle.net/10822/1059645
    Date Published
    2020
    Subject
    Public policy; Public policy;
    Type
    thesis
    Publisher
    Georgetown University
    Extent
    47 leaves
    Collections
    • Graduate Theses and Dissertations - Public Policy
    Metadata
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    Georgetown University Seal
    ©2009 - 2023 Georgetown University Library
    37th & O Streets NW
    Washington DC 20057-1174
    202.687.7385
    digitalscholarship@georgetown.edu
    Accessibility