Swaying voters
The Elevator Effect: Advertising, Priming, and the Rise of Cherie Berry
Jacob Smith & Neil Weinberg
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
This article examines the extent to which advertising outside of an explicit campaign environment has the potential to benefit the electoral fortunes of incumbent politicians. We make use of a novel case of non-campaign advertising, that of North Carolina Secretary of Labor Cherie Berry (R-NC), who has initiated the practice of having her picture and name displayed prominently on official inspection placards inside all North Carolina elevators. We extend Mayhew’s theory of advertising to a non-campaign environment and then theorize that Berry serves as a novel case of non-campaign-specific advertising via a priming mechanism. We then test our theory using spatial regression methods and find that Berry outperformed other statewide Republican candidates in the 2012 North Carolina elections. Our findings suggest that candidates can use this form of advertising to indirectly improve their electoral fortunes.
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Gender, Partisanship, and Candidate-Selection Mechanisms
Valerie Hennings & Robert Urbatsch
State Politics & Policy Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
How candidates are selected, such as through nomination by party elites or election by primary voters, potentially influences the underrepresentation of women in political office. Partisan differences suggest that primary voters in right-leaning parties might select fewer female nominees than would their left-leaning counterparts even if both parties’ elites are equally likely to select female nominees. This hypothesis is confirmed by an analysis of lieutenant governors in the United States, a position that varies in whether candidates are appointed by party elites or elected by primary voters. In cases where lieutenant-governor candidates are appointed, Democratic and Republican gubernatorial nominees are equally likely to choose female running mates; where primary voters select the lieutenant governor, Republicans are less likely to nominate women.
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Partisan Politics and Congressional Election Prospects: Evidence from the Iowa Electronic Markets
Joyce Berg, Christopher Penney & Thomas Rietz
PS: Political Science & Politics, October 2015, Pages 573-578
Abstract:
Using the Iowa Electronic Markets (IEM), this article assesses the political impact of several important events during the fall of 2013: the US government shutdown, the Senate elimination of filibusters for presidential nominations (i.e., the “nuclear option”), and the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e., ObamaCare). Did these events have meaningful effects on congressional control prospects in the 2014 election? According to IEM price changes, Republican chances fell dramatically when the government shut down, and they did not recover on resolution. Eliminating filibusters had a negative impact on Democratic chances. Various aspects of the ObamaCare rollout and reporting, as well as new announcements that incumbents would not run for reelection, had little effect. In contrast, the budget resolution reinforced the status quo. Overall, political rhetoric does not appear to affect congressional control prospects. Instead, actions matter: deliberate partisan actions of Congress adversely affect the initiating party’s prospects, whereas bipartisan initiatives help the party that initiates the bipartisan effort.
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In the Shadows of Sunlight: The Effects of Transparency on State Political Campaigns
Abby Wood & Douglas Spencer
University of Southern California Working Paper, October 2015
Abstract:
In recent years, the courts have deregulated many areas of campaign finance while simultaneously upholding campaign finance disclosure requirements. Opponents of disclosure claim that it chills speech and deters political participation. We leverage state contribution data and find that the speech-chilling effects of disclosure are negligible. On average, donors to state-level campaigns are no less likely to contribute in subsequent elections in states that increase the public visibility of campaign contributions, relative to donors in states that do not change their disclosure laws or practices over the same time period – estimates are indistinguishable from zero and confidence intervals are narrow around zero. Moreover, we do not observe heterogeneous effects for small donors or ideological outliers, despite an assumption in First Amendment jurisprudence that these donors are disproportionately affected by campaign finance regulation. In short, the argument that disclosure aggressively chills speech is not supported by our data.
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Candidate Voice Pitch Influences Election Outcomes
Casey Klofstad
Political Psychology, forthcoming
Abstract:
A growing literature in psychology shows that human voice pitch — perceived “highness” or “lowness” as determined by the physiology of the throat — influences how speakers are perceived. This leads to the prediction that candidate voice pitch influences voters. Here this question is addressed with two studies. The first is an experiment conducted with a large national sample of U.S. adults. The results show that men and women prefer to vote for male and female candidates with lower pitched voices. The second study examines the outcomes of the 2012 U.S. House elections. When facing male opponents, candidates with lower voices won a larger vote share. However, when facing female opponents, candidates with higher voices were more successful and particularly so in the case of male candidates. In synthesizing research on the human voice and voter behavior and triangulating evidence from a controlled experiment and a large observational study of actual elections, this article illustrates that candidate voice pitch influences election outcomes.
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Lasse Laustsen, Michael Bang Petersen & Casey Klofstad
Evolutionary Psychology, September 2015
Abstract:
Humans are equipped with a psychological system of followership that evolved to regulate choices of leaders based partly on would-be leaders’ physiological features. One such feature is voice pitch, which is determined by the physiology of the throat. Recent studies find that political candidates in modern elections with lower-pitched voices are generally more successful. As lower-pitched voices are perceived as stronger and more dominant, these findings have been taken to indicate a general preference for dispositional abilities in leaders to protect and prevail in conflicts. Here we extend upon these findings by demonstrating that conservatives and Republicans tend to view the world as much more competitive and threatening than liberals and Democrats. We utilize two existing data sources to show that political candidates with lower-pitched voices are preferred more among conservative Republicans than among liberal Democrats. In a third study we show that preferences for lower-pitched candidate voices stem from individual differences in Social Dominance Orientation (SDO). Importantly, across all three studies subjects’ party affiliation, ideology, and SDO only predict preferences for male candidate voices. We conclude with a discussion of the results in relation to followership psychology and general debates on the rationality of the public with respect to elections.
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Lasse Laustsen & Michael Bang Petersen
Political Communication, forthcoming
Abstract:
Not just the content of a communication but also the source of the communication shapes its persuasiveness. Recent research in political communication suggests that important source cues are nonverbal and relate to the physical traits of the source such that attractive- and competent-looking sources have better success in attracting votes and policy support. Yet, are all nonverbal source cues similarly received irrespective of audience, or does their reception vary across audiences? Specifically, we ask whether some physical traits are received positively by some audiences but backfire for others. Utilizing research on ideological stereotypes and the determinants of facial preferences, we focus on the relationship between the facial dominance of the source and the ideology of the receiver. Across five studies, we demonstrate that a dominant face is a winning face when the audience is conservative but backfires and decreases success when the audience is liberal. On the other hand, a non-dominant face constitutes a winning face among liberal audiences but backfires among conservatives. These effects seemingly stem from deep-seated psychological responses and shape both the election and communication success of real-world politicians. If the faces of politicians do not match the ideology of their constituency, they are more likely to lose in the competition for votes and policy support.
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Mack Mariani, Bryan Marshall & Lanethea Mathews-Schultz
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research suggests that women’s descriptive representation may have a role-model effect on young women, encouraging them to greater levels of political participation. Using data from the Monitoring the Future Survey and the National Survey of Political and Civic Engagement of Young People, we examine whether highly visible female role models like Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Sarah Palin, and viable female candidates for governor and senator had a role-model effect on young women. At the national level, we find some evidence of a role-model effect resulting from the election of Speaker Pelosi and the presidential candidacy of Hillary Clinton, but the effects are largely concentrated among young women who are Democratic and liberal. We find little evidence that Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential run had a role-model effect on young women, regardless of party or ideology. Our state-level analysis of viable female gubernatorial and senatorial candidates finds that role-model effects on young women and men are mediated in different ways by ideology and, to a lesser extent, party.
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Does the Message Matter? A Field Experiment on Political Party Recruitment
Jessica Robinson Preece & Olga Bogach Stoddard
Journal of Experimental Political Science, Spring 2015, Pages 26-35
Abstract:
Do men and women respond to various party recruitment messages similarly? Working with the Utah County Republican Party, we designed a field experiment in which we invited over 11,600 male and female party activists to attend a free, party-sponsored “Prospective Candidate Information Seminar” by randomizing different invitation messages. We found that women were half as likely as men to respond to recruitment — log on to the seminar website for more information, register for the seminar, and attend the seminar. While we found some suggestive evidence about what recruitment messages may particularly motivate women or men vis-à-vis a control message, our findings are inconclusive because of a low response rate. This first attempt to experimentally test gendered reactions to recruitment in a sample of active party supporters provides a valuable baseline for future research.
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Campaign Perceptions of Electoral Closeness: Uncertainty, Fear and Over-Confidence
Ryan Enos & Eitan Hersh
British Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
In partnership with state Democratic parties and the Obama campaign, the authors surveyed staffers from nearly 200 electoral campaigns in 2012, asking about the expected vote share in their races. Political operatives’ perceptions of closeness can affect how they campaign and represent citizens, but their perceptions may be wildly inaccurate: campaigns may irrationally fear close contests or be unrealistically optimistic. Findings indicate that political operatives are more optimistic than fearful, and that incumbent and higher-office campaigns are more accurate at assessing their chances. While the public may be better served by politicians fearing defeat, campaigns are typically staffed by workers who are over-confident, which may limit the purported benefits of electoral competition.
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When Reports Depress Rather Than Inspire: A Field Experiment Using Age Cohorts as Reference Groups
Lauren Deschamps Keane & David Nickerson
Journal of Political Marketing, forthcoming
Abstract:
A large field experiment sent mail to randomly selected low turnout propensity, young, Latino voters in Colorado during the 2008 Presidential election. One treatment reported that 90% of young Latinos intended to vote in the election. A second treatment added the fact that only 20% of young Latinos actually voted in 2006. A third treatment provided the additional fact that 40% of older Latinos voted in 2006. Compared to the control group, the treatment reporting low levels of prior turnout decreased participation in the 2008 election. This unintended consequence of the campaign provides evidence of the effectiveness of descriptive social norms for purposes of electoral mobilization.
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Explaining the Blue Shift in Election Canvassing
Edward Foley & Charles Stewart
MIT Working Paper, August 2015
Abstract:
We conduct statistical analysis of a phenomenon recently identified by Foley (2013), the rise in the number of votes counted after Election Day (“overtime votes”) and the growing tendency of these votes to disproportionately favor Democrats in presidential elections (the “blue shift.”) We provide a historical description of these two time series, from 1948 to 2012, and establish that the timing of the persistent growth in the blue-shifted overtime vote began with the 2004 election. While some of the interstate variability in these time series is accounted for by regional factors (e.g., a lag in news travelling to New York), changes in the time series are broadly consistent with changes in electoral practices, especially in recent years. We perform statistical analysis to understand better interstate variability in the overtime vote and the blue shift in the 2012 presidential election. We discover that variation in the size of the overtime vote is associated with the number of provisional ballots, but not the number of absentee/mail ballots; variation in the relative size of the blue shift is positively associated with the number of provisional ballots and with the Democratic partisanship of the states. We also perform an analysis of the overtime vote in seven statewide contests in Virginia, using that state’s change log as evidence. We find a tendency of provisional ballots to persistently favor Democrats in these races, whereas other sources of votes accounted for after Election Day do not persistently favor Democrats in that state. We conclude the paper by suggesting how the analysis offered here might be expanded in future work.
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Deny and Attack or Concede and Correct? Image Repair and the Politically Scandalized
Tyler Johnson
Journal of Political Marketing, forthcoming
Abstract:
In the wake of recent political scandals, pundits have argued that the way a politician reacts to a scandal can make or break said politician's relationship with constituents and future in elected office. Some politicians concede guilt immediately, apologize, promise to take corrective action, and possibly open the door to moving on with their careers. Others deny culpability and attack their accusers, hoping to quickly put accusations behind them, change the subject, and channel public attention in a different direction. Does conceding guilt after a scandal breaks and offering to take corrective action to solve the problem help ameliorate the issue, or does it push the public away even further? Does denying involvement in a scandal and attacking the accuser compound the problem, or can it evoke positive feelings? This research uses an experimental design to test individuals’ reactions to how politicians act after being accused of a personal scandal (in this case, an inappropriate relationship with a staffer). Results illustrate that a strategy involving denial and attacking accusers can spur positive evaluations of who a politician is and what that politician will do in the future, while the performance of conceding and taking corrective action is mixed at best.
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A Case of More Is Less: The Role of Gender in U.S. Presidential Debates
Jason Turcotte & Newly Paul
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
For candidates and voters alike, U.S. politics is a gendered space in which women are often underrepresented. Participation from women is assumed to equalize representation and voice in the political process; however, little research has explored gender influence on campaign agendas, particularly in non-news contexts. This study applies a quantitative content analysis to explore the influence of (1) candidate gender, (2) journalist gender, and (3) voter gender on the presidential debate agenda. In examining the issue focus of debate questions, we find that participation from women candidates and women journalists does little to improve agenda diversity and that the agendas set by women journalists fail to satisfy the issue priorities of women voters participating in these same debates.
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Voter Mobilization Meets eGovernment: Turnout and Voting by Mail from Online or Paper Ballot Request
Christopher Mann & Genevieve Mayhew
Journal of Political Marketing, forthcoming
Abstract:
During the past two decades, the movement toward eGoverment has shifted many government services online. Despite initial hopes that the Internet could be leveraged to increase voter participation, eGovernment has changed little about the voting process. Our field experiment compares two treatments sent to voters via postal mail prior to the 2010 General Election in Maine: 1) recruitment to request a mail ballot via Maine's new online system, and 2) recruitment to request a mail ballot using Maine's traditional paper application. We find recruitment to vote by mail using a traditional paper ballot application significantly increased turnout. Contrary to the expectations of advocates of eGovernment, the mailer encouraging voters to use Maine's innovative new online ballot request system generated no significant increase in overall voter turnout. Our findings indicate why eGovernment continues to contribute less to democratic participation than anticipated.
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Carole Jean Uhlaner & Becki Scola
State Politics & Policy Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Prior research has found that descriptive representation by race, ethnicity, or gender increases political action, but it has paid less attention to how the intersection of these identities influences participation. We extend this literature by assessing the effects on voter turnout of collective descriptive representation in U.S. state legislatures on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, and their intersections. We argue that members of historically excluded groups respond to the overall composition of their state’s legislature. We test this proposition in seven elections (2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, and 2012). Our results are consistent with the minority empowerment literature, as overall collective representation does substantially increase turnout among previously excluded groups. However, the impact varies intersectionally. For white women, gender trumps race, as higher collective gender representation, regardless of race or ethnicity, increases voter turnout. For African Americans, race trumps gender, as both black men and women respond most consistently to higher levels of collective racial representation. For Latinos, we find less consistent results, but note a collective ethnic turnout effect for 2002 and 2006. We conclude that collective representation, especially at the intersection of identities, is an important factor influencing levels of turnout among previously excluded groups.
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All About That Base: Changing Campaign Strategies in U.S. Presidential Elections
Costas Panagopoulos
Party Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The current study presents evidence that partisan campaign strategies in US presidential elections have shifted in recent years to reflect a growing emphasis on base mobilization compared to persuading independent, undecided or swing voters. Pursuing reliable supporters appears to be increasingly desirable for political campaigns, especially since 2000, relative to the risky and uncertain prospects of targeting less reliable supporters. I speculate this shift is attributable, at least in part, to changes in the context in which contemporary campaigns operate, coinciding with the 2000 presidential election; advances in microtargeting, particularly through new e-campaigning and e-mobilization technologies, and behavioral science related to voter mobilization represent two of the most potent developments. By contrast, persuasion is a far more difficult and risky approach. I conclude that growing emphasis on base mobilization in elections has likely contributed to intensifying partisan polarization in America.
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Why Two Parties? Ambition, Policy, and the Presidency
John Aldrich & Daniel Lee
Political Science Research and Methods, forthcoming
Abstract:
Duverger’s Law suggests that two parties will dominate under first-past-the-post (FPTP) within an electoral district, but the law does not necessarily establish two-party competition at the national level. United States is unique among FPTP countries in having the only durable and nearly pure, two-party system. Following this observation, we answer two questions. First, what contributes to the same two parties competing in districts all across the country and at different levels of office? Second, why is the US two-party system so durable over time, dominated by the same two parties? That is, “Why two parties?” As an answer, we propose the APP: ambition, the presidency, and policy. The presidency with its national electorate and electoral rules that favor two-party competition establishes two national major parties, which frames the opportunity structure that influences party affiliation decisions of ambitious politicians running for lower offices. Control over the policy agenda helps reinforce the continuation of a particular two-party system in equilibrium by blocking third parties through divergence on the main issue dimension and the suppression of latent issue dimensions that could benefit new parties. The confluence of the three factors explains why the United States is so uniquely a durable two-party system.
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Jody Baumgartner, Jonathan Morris & Jeffrey Michael Coleman
Journal of Political Marketing, forthcoming
Abstract:
In this article we present the results of an experiment designed to disentangle the effects late-night talk shows have on presidential candidate evaluations. Respondents in one condition viewed a short video clip of David Letterman humorously disparaging New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, thought by many to be considering a run for the presidency in 2016. Those in a second condition saw a short clip of Christie engaging in self-deprecating humor while appearing as a guest on Letterman's program. Compared with respondents in a control condition, those in the other-disparaging humor condition had lower evaluations of Christie and reported a lower likelihood of voting for him in 2016, while those in the self-deprecating humor condition had higher evaluations of him and expressed a greater likelihood of voting for him. The research has practical implications for modern campaigns and also serves to clarify some of the seemingly contradictory findings of earlier political humor effects research.
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Donald Green et al.
Journal of Experimental Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
We report the results of a field experiment conducted in New York City during the 2013 election cycle, examining the impact of nonpartisan messages on donations from small contributors. Using information from voter registration and campaign finance records, we built a forecasting model to identify voters with an above-average probability of donating. A random sample of these voters received one of four messages asking them to donate to a candidate of their choice. Half of these treatments reminded voters that New York City's campaign finance program matches small donations with public funds. Candidates’ financial disclosures to the city's Campaign Finance Board reveal that only the message mentioning policy (in generic terms) increased donations. Surprisingly, reminding voters that matching funds multiplied the value of their contribution had no effect. Our experiment sheds light on the motivations of donors and represents the first attempt to assess nonpartisan appeals to contribute.
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The puzzling success of populist parties in promoting women’s political representation
Tatiana Kostadinova & Anna Mikulska
Party Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Previous research dismisses the possibility that populist, male-dominated parties could positively affect gender equality. Yet, evidence from Eastern Europe points at the opposite: Center-rightist formations, led by notable men, have effectively nominated women to office. What can explain such a puzzling phenomenon? This study argues that i) the centralized structure and practices in these populist parties make it possible to avoid the reluctance of gatekeepers to let female candidates run; and that ii) regardless of ideological or cultural predispositions, supporters loyally approve the nomination decisions made by their charismatic leader. We analyze data on three populist parties in Bulgaria and Poland. Our findings confirm that these formations elected more women than the leftist parties because of strategies to nominate female candidates higher on the list. Voters were also more likely to favor female candidates in the open-list system in Poland.
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Presidential Campaign Spending and Correct Voting from 2000 to 2008
Matthew Bergbower, Scott McClurg & Thomas Holbrook
Social Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Objective: This study examines whether presidential campaigns help voters make informed choices on Election Day, or whether unique campaign contexts can actually hinder quality votes. We explore this question by relating the allocation of resources by presidential campaigns to a measure of correct voting (Lau and Redlawsk, 1997).
Methods: We expect that when campaign messages become overwhelmingly one sided, the number of incorrect votes increases and test this through an assessment of campaign data and responses to the 2000, 2004, and 2008 American National Election Studies.
Results: Our results reveal that lopsided campaign contexts create an opportunity for campaigns to pick up votes that would otherwise go to the opposing candidate.
Conclusion: This research underscores the normative value of competitive political campaigns as it relates to voters’ exposure to political information. Our findings contribute to debates on campaign strategy, information environments, and the effect of campaigns on voter decision-making.
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Electronic Voting and Perceptions of Election Fraud and Fairness
Emily Beaulieu
Journal of Experimental Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper contributes to a growing body of research on voting technology and voter confidence, which generally concludes that voters are less confident in technology — particularly in developed democracies. Using a unique survey experiment, this paper demonstrates that far fewer individuals are concerned about election fraud involving electronic voting, compared with other potential forms of election fraud such as registering ineligible voters or voter suppression. Other interesting findings emerge from the data: Older individuals are more concerned about fraud with electronic voting but the effects of age appear to be conditioned on political polarization. This paper advances our understanding of the impact of voting technology on electoral confidence, and raises important substantive and methodological questions about priming.
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Is Voting Habit Forming? New Evidence from Experiments and Regression Discontinuities
Alexander Coppock & Donald Green
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Field experiments and regression discontinuity designs test whether voting is habit forming by examining whether a random shock to turnout in one election affects participation in subsequent elections. We contribute to this literature by offering a vast amount of new statistical evidence on the long-term consequences of random and quasi-random inducements to vote. The behavior of millions of voters confirms the persistence of voter turnout and calls attention to theoretically meaningful nuances in the development and expression of voting habits. We suggest that individuals become habituated to voting in particular types of elections. The degree of persistence appears to vary by electoral context and by the attributes of those who comply with an initial inducement to vote.
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Voting at Home Is Associated with Lower Cortisol than Voting at the Polls
Jayme Neiman et al.
PLoS ONE, September 2015
Abstract:
Previous research finds that voting is a socially stressful activity associated with increases in cortisol levels. Here we extend this research by investigating whether different voting modalities have differential effects on the stress response to voting. Results from a field experiment conducted during the 2012 presidential elections strongly suggest that traditional “at the polls” voting is more stressful, as measured by increases in cortisol levels, than voting at home by mail-in ballot or engaging in comparable non-political social activities. These findings imply that increased low-stress voting options such as mail-in ballots may increase political participation among individuals who are sensitive to social stressors.