Issue voting means that voters cast their ballot based on political issues. It is supposed to be on the rise in the U.S. (McCarty, Poole, & Rosenthal, 2006; Nie, Verba, & Petrocik, 1999) and also in Europe (Aardal & van Wijnen, 2005; but see: Green & Hobolt, 2008). While the literature on issue voting is substantial, remarkably few studies have examined the multiple ways in which issues are connected to parties (or candidates) in voters’ minds. The dominant approach is the spatial framework of voting behavior based on Downs’ (1957) model of electoral competition. The idea is simple: Voters cast their...
