Resumen de Discriminant analysis as an instrument for political analysis

James T. Kitchens, James Larry Powell

• The purpose of this study was to develop a methodology which could be used to isolate influential variables in a political campaign. A survey of voters’ attitudes on issues of the 1972 presidential election was analyzed with discriminant analysis, and the results indicated that the three most influential variables in the campaign were cutting the defense budget, federal support of social programs, and foreign military commitments. The discriminant model derived from this analysis correctly classified voter preference in more than 80% of the observations.