Bring the Middle Back In? Election Timing and Political Polarization
Agustin Markarian (Loyola University Chicago), Zoltan Hajnal (University of California, San Diego) and William Holzer (University of California, Los Angeles)
With political polarization threatening American democracy at almost every level, scholars, policymakers, and pro-democracy advocates have invested considerable time and resources in efforts to mitigate polarization, prevent democratic decline, and avert violent conflict. Despite these efforts, polarization continues to deepen, extending beyond Congress and national politics to state and local governments.
One segment of the American electorate that could help to reduce political polarization is the moderate middle—the tens of millions of Americans who often shun partisanship and who remain largely disinterested in and disengaged from the political arena. Bringing these fellow Americans into the electoral arena could hold the key to our future because they could broker a return to a politics with less extremism and a more certain future for our democracy.
We evaluate election consolidation—a “bottom-up” remedy that has the potential to bring many more disengaged, middle-of-the-road Americans into the local electoral arena. Moving local contests to the same day as federal elections makes voting in those local contests easier. When local elections are consolidated, the more than 100 million Americans who are already casting a ballot in the presidential contest need only to check off a few more boxes further down the ballot in order to participate in local contests. Even a modest increase in participation from moderates and nonpartisans could introduce more balanced perspectives into the political arena through “bottom-up” electoral pressure, encouraging politicians and candidates to shift toward the center, and fostering greater cross-party cooperation.
Research has shown that the move to consolidated elections has a massive impact on local voter turnout—often doubling or tripling turnout. But does it also draw in residents who hold moderate views and weak partisan attachments—a group that disproportionately abstains from most local elections? And do new, more moderate voters lead, in turn, to more moderate candidates running for office and ultimately a less polarized set of elected officials?
This study helps answer these questions. Using model‑enhanced voter files, we assess whether consolidation decreases or increases the share of ideological moderates and nonpartisans participating in local races. We also evaluate whether election timing correlates with shifts in candidate and elected‑official ideology, utilizing a comprehensive 32‑year panel of medium‑ and large‑city and county elections and surveys of municipal officials.
We find that a shift in dates has demonstrable effects on polarization. It reshapes the composition of Americans who participate, alters the mix of candidates who run, and ultimately changes the political leaning of local government officials. By simply changing the dates of local elections from stand-alone dates where only local contests are on the ballot to on-cycle presidential dates, one can substantially reshape local electoral politics. That change in dates—something that is already happening in many states and cities—appears to reduce rather than increase polarization at the local level.
The intervention we examine—a shift in the timing of local electoral contests—is not designed to change politics at the state or federal level. Thus, it is not a direct solution for the national level polarization that concerns so many. But the mechanism that we examine here—making voting easier—is a tool that could be employed at the national level. The lessons that we have learned here could be applied to a different environment. Indeed, what we find here suggests that if we could make the process of voting a lot easier at the national level, we could alter the ideological leaning of the electorate in ways that significantly advantage moderate and middle-of-the-road voices.
In many ways, the problem of polarization in America today is not that those who are involved in politics have strongly divided views and sharply negative perceptions of those on the other side of the partisan divide. In many ways, the problem of polarization in America today may be that those who tend to have less strong views about policy and parties are often standing on the political sidelines. Almost half of all registered voters—there were almost 55 million registered non-voters in 2022—don't bother to vote in the typical election. Looking more broadly across the American population, most adult are not at all involved in the political process at all—there were almost 100 million unregistered adults in 2024. Those Americans are not involved in part because they often don't hold strong views about politics. Why participate if you don't care that much about the result? But those middle-of-the-road Americans may also not be involved because voting is currently costly.
The lesson then is that all of this might change if we could make voting in national politics that much easier and that much less costly. And if we could do that—through universal voting, by eliminating the registration process, by aligning all elections together on the same day, or through a range of other thoughtful reforms that have not yet been identified—then we might go a long way to reducing polarization and the antipathy that undergirds so much of our politics today. It certainly won't be easy to implement these changes but at least we now have a clearer sense of where we might want to go to try to lessen polarization in America.
Agustin Markarian is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Loyola University Chicago. His research examines representation, racial politics, and gun policy. His book project investigates the racial logic behind gun policy in America, revealing a system that prioritizes the protection of White communities while leaving racial minorities unprotected. His work has appeared in APSR, AJPS, LSQ, and PRQ. A first-generation college student, he received his PhD from the University of California, San Diego.
Zoltan Hajnal is Professor of Political Science and co-director of the Yankelovich Center at the University of California, San Diego. Dr. Hajnal is the author of several award winning books, has published in the top political science journals, and has been featured in the New York Times, Washington Post, and a range of other media outlets. He is also active in local election law reform.
William Holzer is a junior at the University of California, Los Angeles, majoring in Political Science. Originally from Highland Park, Illinois, he expects to graduate in 2027. His research interests include local government, electoral politics, and political behavior. He contributed to this study as an undergraduate researcher, coding local election timing to analyze trends in polarization.