Assessing the 1984 Reagan coalition

This is a review of the Times Mirror/Gallup study entitled The People, Press, and Politics.

Those who are interested in political research may be familiar with a recent study commissioned by the Times-Mirror newspaper syndicate and conducted by the Gallup Organization. It utilized a concept that was developed and refined by a former University of Chicago Business School professor, William Wells. He is now the research director of the Chicago-based advertising agency, Needham Worldwide.

Wells developed the idea of segmenting the consuming public based on lifestyles and attitudes, instead of demographics. This idea was further popularized in a book entitled The Nine American Lifestyles by Arnold Mitchell (Macmillan). Mitchell developed the acronym "VALS" to describe his values and lifestyle segmentation of the public.

The technique requires two things: an extensive survey and a working knowledge of advanced statistics. In the interviews, respondents are asked questions about how they live, what they value, and some questions that could be considered political. Their responses are recorded, and responses that are highly correlated are grouped together. The researchers then give names or labels to the groupings.

The deep pockets of Times Mirror combined with the resources of the Gallop Organization produced over 4,000, 90-minute face-to-face interviews around the country. The result was a segmentation of the electorate into 11 groups based on their responses to 72 questions. The 11 segments are shown in the table.

The study describes Ronald Reagan's successful melding of four district groups into a winning coalition. His base was comprised of Enterprisers (pro-business, anti-government, free market) and Moralists (those who are preoccupied with the social agenda and intolerant of different lifestyles). Both groups are certain voters and overwhelmingly Republican. Together, they account for 30 percent of the vote nationwide.

Reagan also added two new groups to the Republican party in 1984. The Upbeats (under age 35, optimistic, middle income, not critical of institutions) comprise 9 percent of the national electorate. The second

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new group, and in many respects his most difficult to mobilize, were the Disaffecteds (alianated, pessimistic, middle age, middle income, middle American). While disaffecteds are tough to turn out on election day, they were attracted to Reagan's outsider image and his description of Washington as a "puzzle palace." They comprise 7 percent of the electorate.

Since 1984, however, Reagan's coalition has weakened, mostly due to the unwillingness of the Upbeats and the Disaffecteds to commit to one party or the other. The Disaffecteds have also been turned off by the Iran-Contra scandal; it simply reinforced their notion that "they're all crooks." The Disaffecteds' participation in the political process will be problematic.

The problem facing Republican and Democratic candidates is that the pull of party labels is not strong enough, and there is little consensus regarding the direction of the country. The challenge is to develop messages that attract new voting groups and do not offend the groups they already have.

The long shot alternative is to develop a message that serves to unite apparently diverse groups. This is normally tried by candidates who have little support with key groups. They run the risk, however, of looking foolish or appearing too strident. □

Richard Day has his own survey research firm, Richard Day Research, in Evanston. The firm has been using this technique in some studies across the country. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign.

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