Campaign season
How the Gender of U.S. Senators Influences People's Understanding and Engagement in Politics
Kim Fridkin & Patrick Kenney
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Electoral accountability depends on citizens making informed choices at the voting booth. We explore whether the gender of U.S. Senators influences what people know about their senators. We also examine whether people's level of information about men and women senators affects their participation in politics. We develop theoretical expectations to explain why a senator's gender may influence citizens' knowledge and behaviors. We rely on the 2006 Congressional Cooperative Election Survey and examine the population of U.S. Senators serving in the 109th Congress. We find that women know far less about their senators than men. Second, the gap in political knowledge closes sharply when women senators represent women citizens. Third, perhaps most importantly, women citizens are more active in politics when represented by women senators. These findings suggest the confluence of more women senators and additional women voters may produce important changes in the policy outcomes of the U.S. Congress.
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The Politics of Race and Voter ID Laws in the States: The Return of Jim Crow?
Rene Rocha & Tetsuya Matsubayashi
Political Research Quarterly, September 2014, Pages 666-679
Abstract:
Does partisan and racial context have an effect on the likelihood that states will adopt stringent requirements for voting? Our duration analysis shows that Republican governments increase the likelihood that a new law requiring citizens to have a photo ID to vote will be passed. This effect is weakened by minority group size. We then examine whether the adoption of voter ID regulations affects turnout across racial groups. Our analysis, using state-level data and the Current Population Survey (CPS) November Supplement File (NSF) for 1980 to 2010, offers little evidence for the belief that minority turnout is uniquely affected by voter ID regulations.
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An Econometric Evaluation of Competing Explanations for The Midterm Gap
Brian Knight
NBER Working Paper, July 2014
Abstract:
This paper provides a unified theoretical and empirical analysis of three longstanding explanations for the consistent loss of support for the President's party in midterm Congressional elections: (1) a Presidential penalty, defined as a preference for supporting the opposition during midterm years, (2) a surge and decline in voter turnout, and (3) a reversion to the mean in voter ideology. To quantify the contribution of each of these factors, we build an econometric model in which voters jointly choose whether or not to participate and which party to support in both House and Presidential elections. Estimated using ANES data from both Presidential and midterm years, the model can fully explain the observed midterm gaps, and counterfactual simulations demonstrate that each factor makes a sizeable contribution towards the midterm gap, with the Presidential penalty playing the largest role.
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Who Asks For Voter Identification? Explaining Poll-Worker Discretion
Lonna Rae Atkeson et al.
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
As street-level bureaucrats, poll workers bear the primary responsibility for implementing voter identification requirements. Voter identification requirements are not implemented equally across groups of voters, and poll workers exercise substantial discretion in how they apply election law. In states with minimal and varying identification requirements, poll workers appear to treat especially minority voters differently, requesting more stringent voter identification. We explain why poll workers are different from other street-level bureaucrats and how traditional mechanisms of control have little impact on limiting poll-worker discretion. We test why many poll workers appear not to follow the law using a post-election survey of New Mexico poll workers. We find little evidence that race, training, or partisanship matters. Instead, poll worker attitudes toward photo-identification policies and their educational attainment influences implementation of voter-identification laws.
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The Site Gap: Racial Inequalities in Early Voting Access
Elliott Fullmer
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
In both 2008 and 2012, about one third of the American electorate cast their votes early. While early voting programs are established by states, counties have considerable discretion with regard to implementing them. While some counties offer only a single early voting site, others offer dozens. Previous research suggests that site density may affect the degree to which programs increase turnout. I use county-level data from the 2008 and 2012 elections to measure whether a county's racial and ethnic composition predicts high (or low) levels of site density. Applying county-level data from the Election Assistance Commission and American Community Survey, I find that the percentage of a county identifying as Black has a significantly negative association with early voting site density. This relationship persists when numerous demographic covariates are included in ordinary least squares models. These site disparities suggest that early voting may not be achieving its full potential in heavily African American communities.
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The Business of American Democracy: Citizens United, Independent Spending, and Elections
Tilman Klumpp, Hugo Mialon & Michael Williams
Emory University Working Paper, July 2014
Abstract:
In Citizens United v. FEC (2010), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that restrictions on independent political expenditures by corporations and labor unions are unconstitutional. We analyze the effects of Citizens United on state election outcomes. We find that Citizens United is associated with an increase in Republican election probabilities in state House races of approximately four percentage points overall and ten or more percentage points in several states. We link these estimates to "on the ground" evidence of significant spending by corporations through channels enabled by Citizens United. We also explore the effects of Citizens United on reelection rates, candidate entry, and direct contributions. Implications for national elections and economic policy are discussed.
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Red Scare? Revisiting Joe McCarthy's Influence on 1950s Elections
Adam Berinsky & Gabriel Lenz
Public Opinion Quarterly, Summer 2014, Pages 369-391
Abstract:
In the early 1950s, politicians apparently allowed themselves to be spectators to the anticommunist witch hunt of Senator Joe McCarthy and his supporters, leading to a particularly grim chapter in American politics. In part, they did so because they thought the public supported McCarthy. Although politicians lacked contemporary public opinion data, they apparently inferred McCarthy's support from key Senate race outcomes. The few senators who initially stood up to McCarthy lost their reelections when McCarthy campaigned against them. In this article, we revisit the case of McCarthy's influence and investigate whether politicians fundamentally misinterpreted support for McCarthy. Using county- and state-level election data from across the twentieth century, we develop plausible counterfactual measures of normal electoral support to assess McCarthy's influence on electoral outcomes. We adopt a variety of analytic strategies that lead to a single conclusion: There is little evidence that McCarthy's attacks mattered to the election outcomes. Our results imply that politicians can greatly err when interpreting the meaning of elections, and point to the importance of research on elections to help prevent such errors.
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Boris Heersink & Brenton Peterson
University of Virginia Working Paper, June 2014
Abstract:
Political actors make strategic choices during campaigns with the hopes of winning elections. However, researchers face difficulties measuring the effect of such choices since this requires knowledge of the outcome under a counterfactual that is not observed in practice. In this article we extend the synthetic control approach for causal inference to circumstances with multiple treated cases and use it to estimate the effect of vice-presidential candidates on their home states' vote totals. The results from elections spanning 1884-2012, and a systematic review of cases where our estimates run counter to prior studies, suggest that vice-presidential candidates increase their tickets' performance in their home states by 2.78 percentage points on average. Contrary to past findings, we show that the choice of running mates can influence electoral outcomes in their home states and potentially swing entire presidential elections.
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Candidate Gender and the Political Engagement of Women and Men
Jennifer Wolak
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does the presence of descriptive representation have symbolic consequences for women's engagement in politics? Given mixed results from prior survey-based studies, I use experiments to investigate whether there is a direct psychological effect of candidate gender on voters' interest in political engagement. By holding the features of the campaign and attributes of the candidates constant, I investigate the specific effects of candidate gender on people's perceptions of the candidates and their desire to engage in politics. I find that women's interest and engagement with the campaign is insensitive to the gender of the candidates, while men are less interested in participating in the election when the congressional candidate from their party is female. The mere presence of women candidates does not animate women's engagement in campaigns.
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Is Voter Competence Good for Voters?: Information, Rationality, and Democratic Performance
Scott Ashworth & Ethan Bueno De Mesquita
American Political Science Review, August 2014, Pages 565-587
Abstract:
A long research tradition in behavioral political science evaluates the performance of democracy by examining voter competence. This literature got its start arguing that voters' lack of information undermines a defense of democracy rooted in electoral accountability. A more recent literature deepens the debate, with some authors claiming that voters effectively use cues to substitute for information about candidates and policies, and other authors claiming that voters are insufficiently rational to do so. We argue that, regardless of its conclusions about voter competence, this literature's single-minded focus on voter behavior is misguided. We use a sequence of formal models to show that traditional intuitions are incomplete because they ignore the effect that changes in voter behavior have on the equilibrium behavior of politicians. When this strategic interaction is taken into account, increases in voter information or voter rationality sometimes make democratic performance better and sometimes make democratic performance worse. One simply cannot assess the implications of voter characteristics for democratic performance without also studying how those characteristics affect the behavior of politicians.
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Justine D'Elia & Helmut Norpoth
Presidential Studies Quarterly, September 2014, Pages 467-483
Abstract:
How can an incumbent win reelection with a bad economy, as Barack Obama did in 2012, defying many forecasts? We focus on the attribution of responsibility at times of severe economic change. When the national economy goes into recession before a new administration takes office, it is highly likely that the old one bears the brunt of responsibility. Using the American National Election Studies Winter 2012 survey, we find that Obama escaped much of the punishment for the poor economic conditions while his predecessor, under whom the economic collapse began, was blamed far more heavily. Moreover, bad conditions notwithstanding, Obama was also credited for an improving economy. It was a combination of blame and credit that greatly helped Obama win reelection with a bad economy.
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How Negativity Can Increase and Decrease Voter Turnout: The Effect of Timing
Yanna Krupnikov
Political Communication, Summer 2014, Pages 446-466
Abstract:
Negative ads dominate campaign communication, but scholars continue to disagree over the effects of negativity on voter turnout. While some studies show that negativity leads to a lower likelihood of turnout, others find precisely the opposite. In this article, I leverage the role of timing to unify findings that were heretofore perceived as largely conflicting. I use the same data to show that at a certain time exposure to negativity can be mobilizing, but at other points in time exposure can be demobilizing. A combination of observational data and experimental results highlight these crucial conditions.
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Disclosing Disclosure: Lessons from a "Failed" Field Experiment
Dick Carpenter et al.
The Forum, August 2014, Pages 343-356
Abstract:
In a recent issue of The Forum, Fortier and Malbin call for more research into the effects of disclosure requirements for campaign finance. In this paper, we report the results of a field experiment designed to assess whether such rules dissuade potential contributors due to privacy concerns. The paper is unique in that we explain why the field experiment never happened, and what we can learn from its "failure." Specifically, we show that 2012 Congressional candidates were fearful about letting potential contributors know that their donations would be made available on the Internet, along with their address, employer, and other personal information. In trying to learn directly about whether contributors would be spooked by this knowledge, we ended up learning indirectly, through the actions of candidates, that privacy concerns may in fact limit participation in the political process, including among small donors.
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George Krause & Benjamin Melusky
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
How durable are politicians' policymaking reputations with the electorate? A theory of reputation depreciation is advanced to explain why the electorate's capacity to hold former officeholders accountable for prior economic stewardship is weakening not only in the time elapsed between prior elective office and seeking subsequent elective office, but also diminishing at a greater rate as the evaluative window for making retrospective economic assessments widens. Aggregate electoral data on ex-governors in the American states suggests that while prior economic stewardship evaluated over entire tenure in office for ex-governors offer the strongest initial retrospective economic attributions, it also yields the greatest rate of reputation depreciation for ex-governors seeking future elective office. Reputational slippage transpires with the passage of time between prior elective office and returning to the electoral arena, whereby voters experience increasing difficulty when it comes to rewarding competent experienced politicians, as well as sanctioning their incompetent counterparts.
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Gender Stereotypes and Corruption: How Candidates Affect Perceptions of Election Fraud
Tiffany Barnes & Emily Beaulieu
Politics & Gender, September 2014, Pages 365-391
Abstract:
How do stereotypes of female candidates influence citizens' perceptions of political fraud and corruption? Because gender stereotypes characterize female politicians as more ethical, honest, and trustworthy than male politicians, there are important theoretical reasons for expecting female politicians to mitigate perceptions of fraud and corruption. Research using observational data, however, is limited in its ability to establish a causal relationship between women's involvement in politics and reduced concerns about corruption. Using a novel experimental survey design, we find that the presence of a female candidate systematically reduces the probability that individuals will express strong suspicion of election fraud in what would otherwise be considered suspicious circumstances. Results from this experiment also reveal interesting heterogeneous effects: individuals who are not influenced by shared partisanship are even more responsive to gender cues; and male respondents are more responsive to those cues than females. These findings have potential implications for women running for office, both with respect to election fraud and corruption more broadly, particularly in low-information electoral settings.
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Daniel Bergan & Richard Cole
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Do campaigns encouraging constituents to contact their legislator influence public policy? We answer this question with a field experiment in which Michigan state legislators are randomly assigned to be contacted by their constituents about a specific bill or to a control group. The field experimental design allows us to produce internally and externally valid estimates of the effects on legislative voting of a campaign in which constituents are urged to contact their legislator. The estimated effect is substantial: being targeted by constituent contacts increases the probability of supporting the relevant legislation by about 12 percentage points. We discuss the normative and theoretical implications of these results.
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Voter turnout in US presidential elections: Does Carville's law explain the time series?
Tony Caporale & & Marc Poitras
Applied Economics, Fall 2014, Pages 3630-3638
Abstract:
We estimate a time series model of voter turnout for 34 US presidential elections, 1880-2012. Employing a variety of econometric techniques, our major results are as follows. (1) A negative and significant structural shift in voter turnout occurs in 1972 and is too large to be explained by the lowering of the voting age. (2) The 1972 shift is the only statistically significant structural shift to occur since the first decade of the twentieth century. (3) Short-term macroeconomic conditions significantly impact turnout, with unemployment having a positive effect. (4) Turnout in recent presidential elections has not deviated significantly from the post-1972 norm. (5) Turnout is positively related to the expected closeness of the election outcome, but contrary to some theoretical predictions, closeness exhibits no trend over time.
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Keith Hamm et al.
The Forum, August 2014, Pages 305-328
Abstract:
This article examines independent spending in state elections before and after the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. FEC. We find that the decision did not have much of a direct effect on business spending, despite public expectations. Increases were higher in the aggregate in states that prohibited corporate spending before the decision. However, the major growth was not in the business or labor sectors, but in the network organizations of political parties - and most particularly the national organizations of state elected and party officials. Contrary to some contemporary views, these developments cannot be understood as a displacement of within-state money from parties to interest groups. Instead, national party organizations were operating across state lines, deciding whether to contribute to formal party committees or their party allies as local circumstances might dictate. This complex movement of money belies any theorizing that would treat a decline in the proportional role of formal party spending as equivalent to a zero-sum increase in the non-party power of interest groups. Rather, we see the pattern of independent spending as part of a larger story of change in American political parties. These changes now include vertically networked parties operating across levels of jurisdiction, alongside the horizontal networks receiving attention in recent scholarship.
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Todd Rogers & Joel Middleton
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Ballot initiatives are consequential and common, with total spending on initiative campaigns in the US rivaling that of Presidential campaigns. Past work using observational data has alternately found that initiative campaign spending cannot affect initiative outcomes, can increase the number of votes rejecting (but not approving) initiatives, or can affect outcomes in either direction. We report the first field experiment to evaluate an initiative advocacy campaign with precision. We find that campaigns can influence both rejection and approval of initiatives by changing how citizens vote, as opposed to by influencing turnout or ballot completion. Our experiment (involving around 18 % of Oregon households in 2008) studied a statewide mail program conducted by a Political Action Committee. Results further suggest that two initiatives would have passed if not for the advocacy campaign to reject them. We discuss implications for theories about direct democracy, campaign finance, and campaign effects.
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(Where) Do Campaigns Matter? The Impact of National Party Convention Location
Matthew Atkinson et al.
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The quadrennial presidential nominating conventions are the biggest campaign events of the election cycle. Previous studies find that conventions significantly impact national-level candidate preferences; however, scholars have not yet specified the effects that such large campaign events have on residents of the host areas. As fairly uniform and one-sided interventions across years and parties, the conventions offer an opportunity for a cross time, cross-sectional analysis of the local effect of campaign events. We develop a difference-in-difference analysis to show conventions significantly affect the presidential candidates' county-level vote shares. Individual-level data from panel surveys from before and after the 2000 and 2004 conventions are used to validate the aggregate-level findings. Beyond providing strong evidence of meaningful campaign event effects, the results demonstrate how campaign effects can be conditional on local political characteristics and geography. Overall, we find Democrats are more likely to gain support in convention host communities than Republicans.
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Ballot Titles and Voter Decision Making on Ballot Questions
Jeff Hastings & Damon Cann
State and Local Government Review, June 2014, Pages 118-127
Abstract:
From gay marriage to taxation to environmental issues, many of our nation's most important policy issues are decided by voters through ballot questions. Conventional wisdom holds that information provided on the ballot about the ballot questions heavily influences voters' choices in those elections, but there is little empirical evidence of this. We apply theories of framing to voters' choices on ballot questions and design an experiment to test the hypothesis that ballot title wording influences voters' decisions. Even on a matter that is hotly contested and where the policy is relatively noncomplex and relatively well understood by voters, we find strong framing effects for changes in ballot title wording, though the effects are driven primarily by influencing whether individuals who previously supported the measure abstained from participation.
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Do Ballot Initiatives Increase General Political Knowledge?
Nicholas Seabrook, Joshua Dyck & Edward Lascher
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Current literature often suggests that more information and choices will enhance citizens' general political knowledge. Notably, some studies indicate that a greater number of state ballot initiatives raise Americans' knowledge through increases in motivation and supply of political information. By contrast, we contend that political psychology theory and findings indicate that, at best, more ballot measures will have no effect on knowledge. At worst greater use of direct democracy should make it more costly to learn about institutions of representative government and lessen motivation by overwhelming voters with choices. To test this proposition, we develop a new research design and draw upon data more appropriate to assessing the question at hand. We also make use of a propensity score matching algorithm to assess the balance in the data between initiative state and non-initiative state voters. Controlling for a wide variety of variables, we find that there is no empirical relationship between ballot initiatives and political knowledge. These results add to a growing list of findings which cast serious doubt on the educative potential of direct democracy.
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The Redistricting Cycle, Partisan Tides, and Party Strategy in State Legislative Elections
Todd Makse
State Politics & Policy Quarterly, September 2014, Pages 342-363
Abstract:
State legislative elections are increasingly shaped by two factors that influence the prospects of winning a majority: the redistricting cycle and partisan tide elections. Winning control of the redistricting process offers the prospect of shaping elections for the next decade, making majority status significantly more valuable than it otherwise might be. Partisan tides, on the contrary, can dramatically alter perceptions of which seats are safe or vulnerable and of whether majority status is obtainable or not. In this article, I examine how the proximity of redistricting and the presence of partisan tides are reflected in the strategies of the party organizations that contest state legislative elections. Using party finance data from 29 states during the period from 1996 to 2010, I find that parties' majority-seeking behavior is more intense in states with legislative redistricting, when redistricting is imminent, and when partisan tides favor the minority party.
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Toward More Usable Electronic Voting: Testing the Usability of a Smartphone Voting System
Bryan Campbell et al.
Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, August 2014, Pages 973-985
Objective: The goal of this research was to assess the usability of a voting system designed for smartphones.
Method: A mobile voting system optimized for use on a smartphone was designed and tested against traditional voting platforms for usability.
Results: There were no reliable differences between the smartphone-based system and other voting methods in efficiency and perceived usability. More important, though, smartphone owners committed fewer errors on the mobile voting system than on the traditional voting systems.
Conclusion: Even with the known limitations of small mobile platforms in both displays and controls, a carefully designed system can provide a usable voting method. Much of the concern about mobile voting is in the area of security; therefore, although these results are promising, security concerns and usability issues arising from mitigating them must be strongly considered.