Campaign mode
Peter Schrott & David Lanoue
Electoral Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
A growing literature establishes that presidential candidates can help and hurt themselves through their performance in televised debates. Debate performance, however, is a somewhat elusive concept. Voters' post-debate assessments of the participants may be heavily colored by pre-existing attitudes toward candidates, parties, and the incumbent president. This paper attempts to tease out the "true" impact of debate performance, i.e., those times in which the candidates' superiority or inferiority on stage breaks through voters' cognitive filters. We find that debate performance is responsible for only about half of the variance in viewers' assessments of winners and losers; that it is possible to be declared the winner in the post-debate polls based entirely on factors exogenous to the debate itself; and that even a highly successful performance might yield only a narrow win in the postdebate polls. We also present evidence that, when measured properly, debate performance can actually alter candidate preferences.
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Daniel Franklin, Sean Richey & Ryan Yonk
State and Local Government Review, June 2013, Pages 108-115
Abstract:
Based on prior research on political business cycles, we investigate the manipulation of state budgets in battleground states. The state-based winner-take-all Electoral College system in the United States makes certain states extremely politicized during presidential elections. We hypothesize that budgets will target specific groups of swing voters in these battleground states. We test the impact of competitive state status in presidential elections on state budgets from 1982 to 2005 by creating a cross-sectional time-series regression model of state budget priorities from Jacoby and Schneider. While controlling for known determinants of budgets, we find strong support for our hypothesis.
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Conor Dowling & Amber Wichowsky
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Despite the Supreme Court's acceptance of disclosure requirements, some donors have been able to remain anonymous through a combination of regulatory gaps, complicated financing schemes, and lags in when information is made public. As a first examination of the potential consequences of increased anonymity in political advertising we designed an experiment that varied the amount and format of information about the interests behind an attack ad sponsored by an "unknown" group. We find that participants were more supportive of the attacked candidate after viewing information disclosing donors, suggesting that voters may discount a group-sponsored ad when they have more information about the financial interests behind the message. We also find some evidence that the effect of disclosure depends on how campaign finance information is presented. Our study has implications for how (to this point, failed) congressional efforts to require greater disclosure of campaign finance donors may affect electoral politics.
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Long Term Consequences of Elections
Anthony Fowler & Andrew Hall
Harvard Working Paper, August 2012
Abstract:
Elections matter - even more than previously thought. A Democratic and Republican legislator elected by the same district will disagree on 1 out of every 3 bills. Moreover, a single election result will influence many more elections downstream. As a result of these two phenomena, elections hold significant long-term consequences for representation and public policy. Combining electoral and legislative roll call data in a dynamic regression-discontinuity design, we find that a "coin-flip" election in a moderate district will influence the style of representation received by an electorate for more than a decade. The effects of one election persist for approximately 16 years in Congress, 10 years in state legislatures, and 20 years in the case of open seat races. This representational inertia poses a serious challenge to democratic representation and voter welfare by creating persistent mismatches between legislators and their constituents.
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Sean Cain
Election Law Journal, March 2013, Pages 3-17
Abstract:
Do political consultants' roles in American elections reflect candidate-centered or party-centered politics? I reassess the argument that American politics is candidate-centered if party organizations cannot nominate congressional candidates. I evaluate an overlooked means of party influence over U.S. House nominations via the market for consultants, many of whom contract with party committees to conduct electioneering activities while others maintain contractual autonomy from party committees. This dichotomy between connected and unconnected consulting firms is a consequence of campaign finance policy contributing to the expansion of parties' coordinated and independent spending efforts. Many political consulting firms that contract with parties also take on House candidates as clients, while other firms with candidate clients do not contract with parties. I assess whether candidate use of the former type - i.e., the party-agent consultant - increases the ability to win a primary election compared to hiring the latter type, the free agent, controlling for firms' past records of success, client loads, and primary election characteristics. The results indicate that use of party-connected consultants increases a primary candidate's electoral prospects, and they reveal party influence, though not quite control, over House nomination.
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Stefano DellaVigna et al.
University of California Working Paper, February 2013
Abstract:
Why do people vote? We argue that signaling utility plays a significant role in explaining voting behavior: people vote because others might ask. We construct a model in which individuals may derive pride from signaling to others that they voted and, conversely, feel shame or guilt from admitting that they did not vote. We design a field experiment that is tightly linked to this model and allows us to estimate the key parameters of the theory. In three inter-related treatments, we study the cost voters and non-voters of the 2010 congressional election are willing to incur to sort into and out of situations in which they might be asked whether they voted. We find that signaling utility significantly affects the sorting of non-voters. For a broad range of plausible values of lying cost, we estimate a value of voting ‘just because others will ask' of $10-$15. This value is sizeable enough to explain election turnout.
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Juliet Carlisle & Robert Patton
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
This research conceptualizes political engagement in Facebook and examines the political activity of Facebook users during the 2008 presidential primary (T1) and general election (T2). Using a resource model, we test whether factors helpful in understanding offline political participation also explain political participation in Facebook. We consider resources (socioeconomic status [SES]) and political interest and also test whether network size works to increase political activity. We find that individual political activity in Facebook is not as extensive as popular accounts suggest. Moreover, the predictors associated with the resource model and Putnam's theory of social capital do not hold true in Facebook.
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Substance and Symbolism: Race, Ethnicity, and Campaign Appeals in the United States
Tatishe Nteta & Brian Schaffner
Political Communication, Spring 2013, Pages 232-253
Abstract:
Using data from the 2002 Wisconsin Advertising Project and a Democratic direct mailing firm, we ask if candidates publicly court African American and Hispanic voters through the inclusion of these groups in their campaign advertisements or through appeals to their substantive policy interests. We find evidence that Democratic and Republican candidates make symbolic and substantive appeals only when these appeals are very unlikely to be viewed by White voters. These findings lend credence to studies that conclude that candidates are hesitant to publicly court minority voters due to concerns that such activities may harm their existing electoral coalitions, particularly their standing with White voters.
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Who Wants to Discuss Vote Choices with Others? Polarization in Preferences for Deliberation
Alan Gerber et al.
Public Opinion Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Should people discuss their vote choices with others? On one hand, many people argue that openly deliberating with others can lead to better decision-making. On the other hand, institutions like the secret ballot imply that keeping these choices secret has value, perhaps as a means of insulating people from unwanted social pressures. This paper examines public attitudes about whether it is best to discuss one's choices with others or to treat them as personal matters. We find that the American public is evenly divided on this issue. We also find that those who are least confident in their political capabilities - those who arguably could benefit most from deliberating about their vote choices - are most likely to say that choices should be treated as personal matters. Our findings have implications for understanding the role of political deliberation in the United States.
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Selection Method, Partisanship, and the Administration of Elections
Barry Burden et al.
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
The methods used to select public officials affect the preferences they bring to office, the incentives they face while in office, and, ultimately, the policy goals they pursue. We argue that the preferences and actions of local election officials (LEOs) differ depending on whether they are elected or appointed. We test these expectations with a data set that includes the survey responses of 1,200 Wisconsin LEOs, structured interviews, census data, and returns from the 2008 presidential election. Drawing upon a natural experiment in how officials are selected, we find that, compared to appointed officials, elected officials express greater support for voter access and express less concern about ballot security and administrative costs. For appointed officials, we find that voter turnout in a municipality is lower when the LEO's self-reported partisanship differs from the partisanship of the electorate but only in cases where the official is a Republican.
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Issue Convergence Is Nothing More Than Issue Convergence
Keena Lipsitz
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
It is widely assumed that candidate issue convergence or "dialogue" is beneficial for voters in campaigns. Using a lagged weekly measure of issue convergence in political advertising about specific campaign issues from the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns, I show that dialogue, as it is currently defined by campaigns and elections scholars, is as likely to harm voters as it is to help them. These findings require scholars to think more deeply about what role, if any, issue convergence plays in deliberative campaigns.
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Candidate Genes and Voter Turnout: Further Evidence on the Role of 5-HTTLPR
Kristen Diane Deppe et al.
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Recently in this journal, Charney and English (2012) presented an extensive critique of candidate gene association studies using the widely noted Fowler and Dawes (2008) article on the relationship between self-reported voter turnout and both 5-HTT (serotonin transporter) and MAOA (monoamine oxidase A) as the driving example of their evaluation. Reanalysis of the Fowler and Dawes data by Charney and English, based on four critiques of candidate gene studies, led to the conclusion that neither polymorphism is related to variations in turnout. We add to this empirical debate by conducting an independent test using an original dataset containing 5-HTT data and two separate participation variables: self-reported participation and actual voting records. Our results confirm the original conclusions by Fowler and Dawes on 5-HTT, but also support several of the critiques suggested by Charney and English. We conclude by offering suggestions for the way candidate gene association studies should be interpreted by the discipline and processed by journal editors.
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Issue and Leader Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections
Andreas Graefe
Electoral Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
The "Issues and Leaders" model shows that aggregate votes for President in U.S. elections from 1972 to 2012 can be accurately predicted from people's perceptions of the candidates' issue handling competence and leadership qualities. For the past five elections, the model's ex ante forecasts, calculated three to two months prior to Election Day, were competitive with those from the best of eight established political economy models. Model accuracy substantially improved closer to Election Day. The Election Eve forecasts missed the actual vote shares by, on average, little more than one percentage point and thus reduced the error of the Gallup pre-election poll by 30%. The model demonstrates that the direct influence of party identification on vote choice decreases over the course of the campaign, whereas issues gain importance. The model has decision-making implications in that it advises candidates to engage in agenda setting and to increase their perceived issue-handling and leadership competence.
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Kenneth Winneg, Bruce Hardy & Kathleen Hall Jamieson
American Politics Research, March 2013, Pages 244-260
Abstract:
To examine the effects of the 2008 Obama campaign's targeted media effort aimed at Latino voters, we married 2008 campaign media data from multiple sources to survey data on registered Latino voters in Nevada and Arizona to examine the specific impact of advertisement buys on that population. In the presence of controls, Obama's media spending advantage over McCain had a significant and positive relationship with an Obama vote. When looking at local broadcast, cable and radio specifically, we find a significant relationship between spending differentials on local broadcast advertising and vote intention but not between spending differentials on radio and cable buys.
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Name Recognition and Candidate Support
Cindy Kam & Elizabeth Zechmeister
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The mass media devote a great deal of attention to high-profile elections, but in American political life such elections are the exception, not the rule. The majority of electoral contests feature candidates who are relative unknowns. In such situations, does name recognition breed contempt, indifference, or affection? Existing work presents modest theory and mixed evidence. Using three laboratory experiments, we provide conclusive evidence that name recognition can affect candidate support, and we offer strong evidence that a key mechanism underlying this relationship is inferences about candidate viability. We further show that the name-recognition effect dissipates in the face of a more germane cue, incumbency. We conclude with a field study that demonstrates the robustness of the name-recognition effect to a real-world political context, that of yard signs and a county election.
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Early Voting and Campaign News Coverage
Johanna Dunaway & Robert Stein
Political Communication, Spring 2013, Pages 278-296
Abstract:
The proportion of votes cast before election day has risen steadily over the last two decades. Previous research asked how early voting has impacted voter participation. In this article, we ask how early voting has affected the flow of information to voters through the mass media. By increasing the number of days voters are able to vote, are we also increasing the number of days that candidates and campaigns continuously disseminate campaign-related information to the news media? Is news coverage of campaigns quantitatively and qualitatively different when opportunities to vote early are available and utilized? Our expectation is that early voting significantly influences the volume and nature of campaign news coverage. We study the effects of early voting on campaign news coverage of gubernatorial and Senate races in 2006 and 2008. Our findings reveal that the volume and content of campaign news coverage is significantly influenced by early voting.
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The nationalization of electoral cycles in the United States: A wavelet analysis
Luís Aguiar-Conraria, Pedro Magalhães & Maria Joana Soares
Public Choice, forthcoming
Abstract:
We take a new look at electoral sectionalism and dynamic nationalization in presidential elections. We treat this problem as one of synchronism of electoral cycles, which we estimate by using wavelets. After providing a self-contained introduction to wavelet analysis, we use it to assess the degree and the dynamics of electoral synchronization in the United States. We determine clusters of states where electoral swings have been more and less in sync with each other and with the national cycle. Then, we analyze how the degree of synchronism of electoral cycles has changed through time, answering questions as to when, to what extent, and where has a tendency towards a "universality of political trends" in presidential elections been more strongly felt. We present evidence strongly in favor of an increase in the dynamic nationalization of presidential elections taking place since the 1950s, largely associated with a convergence in most (but not all) Southern states.
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Increasing Inequality: The Effect of GOTV Mobilization on the Composition of the Electorate
Ryan Enos, Anthony Fowler & Lynn Vavreck
Harvard Working Paper, January 2013
Abstract:
Numerous get-out-the-vote (GOTV) interventions are successful in raising voter turnout. However, these increases may not be evenly distributed across the electorate and may actually increase the differences between voters and non-voters. This phenomenon is particularly notable given the many GOTV strategies that explicitly aim to reduce inequalities in representation. By analyzing individual level-data, we reassess previous GOTV experiments to determine which interventions mobilize under-represented versus well-represented citizens. We develop a generalized and exportable test which indicates whether a particular intervention reduces or exacerbates disparities in political participation and apply it to 26 previous experimental interventions. Despite raising mean levels of voter turnout, more than two-thirds of the interventions in our sample widened disparities in participation. On average, voter mobilization strategies tend to increase the participation gap, thereby exacerbating representational inequality. We conclude by discussing substantive implications for political representation and methodological implications for experimenters.
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Florian Arendt, Franziska Marquart & Jörg Matthes
Journal of Media Psychology, Spring 2013, Pages 72-82
Abstract:
We investigated whether political print ads were able to moderate the influence of automatic affective gut reactions (i.e., implicit attitudes) on overtly expressed evaluations (i.e., explicit attitudes) of foreigners. In accordance with the feeling-as-information theory (Schwarz, 2012, In Van Lange et al. (Eds.), Handbook of Theories of Social Psychology, Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage), we assumed that political ads containing positive, calming stimuli (e.g., nature pictures) signal a benign environment and thus should lead to less-effortful processing in subsequent situations. Due to the fact that the implicit-explicit correspondence is assumed to be higher under less-effortful processing, we hypothesized that these political print ads are able to increase the implicit-explicit correspondence. We tested this in an experiment in which participants (N = 164) were exposed to three positively valenced, calming ads of a European right-wing party (treatment group 1), or three negatively valenced, arousing ads of the same party (treatment group 2), or bogus ads (control group). As predicted, implicit attitudes better predicted explicit attitudes in participants who watched the positively valenced, calming ads. Thus, these participants based their overtly expressed evaluation of foreigners more on their (mostly negative) automatic gut reactions. In contrast, we found that egalitarian-related nonprejudicial goals predicted explicit attitudes in participants who watched negatively valenced, arousing ads. Thus, the content of these ads seemed to be "too strong" for participants and activated egalitarian-related values, which in turn predicted explicit attitudes. Taken together, our findings underline the importance of considering the relationship between explicit and implicit attitudes when studying the effects of political advertising.
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Ballot Design as Fail-Safe: An Ounce of Rotation Is Worth a Pound of Litigation
Mary Beth Beazley
Election Law Journal, March 2013, Pages 18-52
Abstract:
For generations, some candidates have argued that first-listed candidates gain "extra" votes due to primacy effect, recommending ballot rotation to solve the problem. These votes, however, are generally intentional votes, accurately cast, and rotation is controversial. This article argues that rotation is appropriate because it mitigates the electoral impact of not only primacy effect, but also of two categories of miscast votes. First, rotation mitigates the impact of proximity-mistake votes, which can occur even on well-designed ballots when voters mis-vote for a candidate in proximity to their chosen candidate. Second, rotation mitigates the impact of mis-votes caused by flawed ballot designs, providing a fail-safe that can prevent some electoral meltdowns. Ballot rotation represents a last-best-chance to avoid the electoral impact of foreseeable and unforeseeable voter error and ballot design issues. Although the impact is small for each of these kinds of voter behavior, some elections are won in the margins. Further, because post-election fixes are both costly and ineffective, states should use election procedures that minimize the need for post-election litigation. Legislators should enact precinct-level rotation to evenly distribute the benefits and burdens of various ballot positions and to promote election results that more accurately reflect the choice of the electorate.
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Patrick Howell & Florian Justwan
Electoral Studies, June 2013, Pages 334-343
Abstract:
Previous scholarship has found robust connections between winning an election and democratic system support. Building on this connection, our analysis theorizes an additional dimension of competitiveness existing in executive elections. We hypothesize a polarizing effect in close elections: that individuals feel the most satisfied after winning by a narrow margin, while losers will be most dissatisfied. Using survey data from eighteen national elections across eight countries, our findings support half of this expectation. Winner satisfaction with democratic systems is highest in close elections and erodes as margin increases. Losers' reported satisfaction is not affected by margin - those who lose by half a percent are indistinguishable in levels of system support from those who lose in landslides.
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Lars Hall et al.
PLoS ONE, April 2013
Abstract:
Political candidates often believe they must focus their campaign efforts on a small number of swing voters open for ideological change. Based on the wisdom of opinion polls, this might seem like a good idea. But do most voters really hold their political attitudes so firmly that they are unreceptive to persuasion? We tested this premise during the most recent general election in Sweden, in which a left- and a right-wing coalition were locked in a close race. We asked our participants to state their voter intention, and presented them with a political survey of wedge issues between the two coalitions. Using a sleight-of-hand we then altered their replies to place them in the opposite political camp, and invited them to reason about their attitudes on the manipulated issues. Finally, we summarized their survey score, and asked for their voter intention again. The results showed that no more than 22% of the manipulated replies were detected, and that a full 92% of the participants accepted and endorsed our altered political survey score. Furthermore, the final voter intention question indicated that as many as 48% (±9.2%) were willing to consider a left-right coalition shift. This can be contrasted with the established polls tracking the Swedish election, which registered maximally 10% voters open for a swing. Our results indicate that political attitudes and partisan divisions can be far more flexible than what is assumed by the polls, and that people can reason about the factual issues of the campaign with considerable openness to change.
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No laughing matter? Young adults and the "spillover effect" of candidate-centered political humor
Jody Baumgartner
Humor, January 2013, Pages 23-43
Abstract:
Is there a spillover effect among young adults that results from viewing candidate-centered political comedy? A panel survey was conducted where one half of the subjects, all aged 18-24, viewed four short animated online video clips lambasting the candidates during the final months of the 2008 presidential campaign. Results suggest that a negative schema was primed among viewers as the result of viewing this candidate-centered political humor, which appears to have guided evaluations of other political objects as well. In particular, viewers of the clips evaluated public officials, government and the news media lower than did non-viewers. The research adds to our understanding of the effects of political humor, suggesting that the attitudinal effects of political humor extend well beyond its explicit target.