This paper uses long-term panel data to explore the implications of an individual’s vote history for their subsequent partisan orientations and voting choices. We consider how recent vote history and lifelong vote history articulate with current partisan identification, and how the development of the former appears to help us understand the development of the latter. We also examine vote history effects by asking how past votes help predict future votes even after taking into account party ID. We pay special attention to three other topics best investigated with long-term panel data: whether the voting choices of “pure independents” prove to be harbingers of future partisan loyalties; whether the first presidential vote cast has special influence on succeeding indicators of partisanship; and whether support for third party candidates boosts partisan detachment. Throughout, we maintain a focus on the fact that this history is being developed at particular moments of the life cycle, which brings to the fore twin developmental expectations: (1) that the potency of the adjustment wrought by vote history will be most pronounced in the early adult years as individuals enter the electorate, experience their first elections as voters, and are forging and refining their political selves; and (2) that as the march through the life cycle proceeds, partisan orientations as manifested in party affiliation and in vote history become more meaningful and reliable guides to future choices