Single-issue Politics - Groups and Voters

Groups and Voters

Single-issue politics are a form of litmus test; common examples are abortion, taxation, animal rights, environment, and gun politics. The National Rifle Association in the United States, which has only one specific interest, is an example of a single-issue group. What differentiates single-issue groups from other interest groups is their intense style of lobbying.

The term single-issue voter has been used to describe people who may make voting decisions based on the candidates' stance on a single issue (e.g. "pro-life" or "pro-choice", support for gun rights or gun-control). The existence of single-issue voters can give a distorted impression: a candidate's overall views may not enjoy the same support. For example, a person who votes for a socially conservative Republican candidate, based solely on his or her support of gun rights, may not necessarily share the candidate's other views on social issues, such as abortion or family values.

Read more about this topic:  Single-issue Politics

Famous quotes containing the words groups and/or voters:

    In America every woman has her set of girl-friends; some are cousins, the rest are gained at school. These form a permanent committee who sit on each other’s affairs, who “come out” together, marry and divorce together, and who end as those groups of bustling, heartless well-informed club-women who govern society. Against them the Couple of Ehepaar is helpless and Man in their eyes but a biological interlude.
    Cyril Connolly (1903–1974)

    The effort to calculate exactly what the voters want at each particular moment leaves out of account the fact that when they are troubled the thing the voters most want is to be told what to want.
    Walter Lippmann (1889–1974)