An “authoritarian spring?” authoritarianism and the 2018 midterm elections

Abstract

This paper examines the role of authoritarianism in the 2018 US congressional elections. In particular, we assess whether the issues that have historically been central to the authoritarian divide in the American electorate were salient in the campaigns of several important Senate races. We demonstrate that authoritarian attitudes played a consistent, significant role on presidential vote choice, party identification, and numerous policy areas in the 2016 presidential election using data from the American National Election Studies. Using case studies of six Senate races in the 2018 midterm elections, we find that authoritarianism was more muted than in 2016, and that the role of authoritarianism varied considerably depending upon the race. States with stronger Trump support in 2016 featured authoritarianism more heavily than states with less Trump support in 2016, but authoritarianism overall was not as prominent in 2018 as in 2016. Overall, Senate candidates relied on traditional campaign messages related to candidate qualifications, personal attacks, the economy, and other messages less central to authoritarianism.