PREDICTING PARTY IDENTIFICATION, 1956-80: Who Are the Republicans and Who Are the Democrats?

Multivariate predictions of party identification have been based on father's party and social or demographic characteristics in past studies. This paper uses two policy attitudes to predict party along with the usual predictors of partisanship, from 1956 to 1980. The policy attitudes--domestic welfare policy opinion and civil rights policy opinion--have theoretical links to partisanship stemming from the New Deal and the 1960s. Domestic welfare policy opinion is found to be a major predictor of party identification. Despite the inclusion of the two policy attitudes and correction for attenuation caused by measurement error, only about 50% of the variance in party identification can be explained. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]