Long Run Political Convergence? A State-by-State Analysis

Abstract

This paper constructs and examines state level political ideology from 1789 to 1996 to sort out the long run political trends of the United States. The purpose is twofold: First, to construct a reliable measure of long run political ideology for each of the contiguous 48 states. Second to test whether states have become more or less alike over time. The paper exploits a rich unbalanced panel data set developed from all roll call votes cast during congresses 1 to 104 by aggregating ideology measures to the state level. Then, the paper employs a non-linear filter to separate long run trends from short run fluctuations. Finally, the paper employs recent econometric techniques from the growth convergence literature to assess political convergence. I find long run ideology tends to be governed by region with time-varying equilibria. For example, at the turn of the century most northern states were highly right-wing whereas the South was not. However, after World War I, these ideologies tended to converge until most states were compressed in a more moderate range by the early 1960s. Since then, the South has become more right-wing whereas the North has moved to a more left-wing position.