As New Jersey Democrats head to the polls for Tuesday’s primaries, they will encounter a newly designed ballot. This updated format removes a distinctive feature that critics claim allowed party leaders to influence primary outcomes.
Research has shown that this "line" provided significant advantages to candidates who received it. Julia Sass Rubin, director of Rutgers University’s public policy program and an expert witness in a related lawsuit, found that endorsement by a county party organization and placement on the county line increased a candidate's support by about 12 percentage points on average.
Political science professor Josh Pasek from the University of Michigan also reported similar findings. His study indicated that the line gave candidates an advantage of 10 to 11 points, with the effect being more pronounced in primaries without incumbents and among candidates with little name recognition.
“The line undergirds an ability of political machines to control politics and policy of the state,” said Rubin. “That’s fundamentally the impact of the line.”
Earlier research by Sass-Rubin explored the effects of party support alongside other resources tied to it, finding those who received both performed 38 points better on average. However, how institutional get-out-the-vote operations fare without organizational lines remains untested.
“One of the impacts is that more people will get into primaries to run,” Rubin noted. “But you’re not seeing that in this cycle because the decision came after the cutoff to file to run this cycle.”
