Partisan commitment: A research note

The commitment of respondents to their answers to the National Election Studies party identification question is examined in a nationwide experiment using the traditional wording and two variant wordings. About two-thirds of the sample were found to be committed to their responses. Leaners and pure independents were particularly uncommitted. Committed independents were much closer to the classical image than those identified as independents by the traditional measure. Leaners are not entirely consistent either with the view that they are disguised partisans or with the view that they are mostly independent with a tendency to lean toward a party. Of particular theoretical importance were the one-fifth of the sample who, when given the chance, indicated that they did not think of themselves in either partisan or independent terms. We suggest that the standard question on party identification should be supplemented with periodic monitoring of the extent of nonconforming answers.