Date of Award

Summer 2025

Document Type

Open Access Thesis

Department

Moore School of Business

First Advisor

Sarah B. Waldfogel

Abstract

The classical Median Voter Theorem (MVT) predicts that, in a two-party system with majority rule, candidates will converge toward the ideological center to capture the median voter. This logic, grounded in spatial models of political competition, assumes full voter participation and fails to account for the growing ideological polarization in modern democracies. This thesis reevaluates the MVT by incorporating probabilistic turnout into a utility-based model of voter behavior. It theorizes that turnout is shaped not only by ideological proximity but also by expressive motivations, including both strong affinity and strong aversion to candidates. A novel measure of turnout utility is developed to capture this dual effect, and the model is tested using Common Content Election Study (CCES) data from 2008 to 2020. Logistic regression results show that both motivation utility and polarization utility significantly predict turnout. Moreover, turnout increases at the ideological extremes, consistent with a U-shaped relationship between candidate-specific utility and participation. These findings suggest that ideological divergence may be a rational electoral strategy under conditions of polarized turnout, complicating the MVT’s centrist equilibrium and offering a revised understanding of candidate positioning in polarized political environments.

Rights

© 2025, George Thomas Rogers

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