Campaign signs
Implicit Cue-Taking in Elections
Adam Berinsky et al.
MIT Working Paper, September 2014
Abstract:
Can implicit racial cues change voters' perceptions about a candidate's race, and even change their support for a candidate? The results from a recent local election, in which a white conservative man defeated a well-established African American incumbent with Democratic endorsements in a predominantly non-white and Democratic district, suggest that is can be done. In this paper we run an experiment to test whether the anecdotal explanation for this outcome, that a white Dave Wilson implied that he was black by including photos of only African Americans in his campaign mailers, holds true. We not only find that the racial composition of campaign photos affects perceptions about a candidate's race, it also translates into increased electoral support: Black respondents were more likely to vote for a candidate whose campaign flyer used black images relative to the same flyer that used photos of white people. We also explore whether this electoral boost comes from voters wanting an elected official who looks like them, or whether voters use the candidate's race as a way to infer other politically-relevant information, like ideology and policy stances. While we find that black respondents who viewed campaign materials with black images perceived the candidate as more liberal and more Democratic, the effects do not persist at the level of individual policy positions or personal characteristics. Taken together, our results highlight how voters gather and use information in low-salience elections and demonstrate that a campaign strategy of implicit racial cuing seems to be an effective one.
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Andrea Prat
Columbia University Working Paper, August 2014
Abstract:
How much influence can news providers exert on the political process? This paper defines the power of a media organization as its ability to induce voters to make electoral decisions they would not make if reporting were unbiased. While existing media concentration measures are built by aggregating market shares across platforms, the new measure performs cross-platform aggregation at the level of individual voters on the basis of their attention shares. The paper derives a robust upper bound to media power over a range of assumptions on the beliefs and attention patterns of voters. Computing the value of the index for all major news sources in the United States from 2000 to 2012 results in four findings. First, it cannot be excluded that the three largest media conglomerates could individually swing the outcome of most presidential elections. Second, in all specifications the most powerful media organizations are broadcasters: the press and new media are always below. Third, relative media power is well approximated by a simple function of attention shares. Fourth, a calibrated version of the model indicates that media power is much lower than the upper bound but still substantial.
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Issue-Based Negativity and Candidate Assessment
Kevin Banda
Public Opinion Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Citizens are exposed to a great deal of information during election campaigns, much of which takes the form of cues about candidates' positions on issues. This research examines how citizens respond to information cues embedded in negative messages made by candidates about their opponents. Specifically, I examine how such cues influence citizens' views of both the target and the sponsor of the attack. Data from a survey experiment show that citizens use these cues in two ways: (1) they assess the target of the message as holding more extreme ideological positions than the ones the attacker actually espouses; while (2) their assessments of the attack's sponsor shift in the opposite direction.
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Group-based Appeals and the Latino Vote in 2012: How immigration Became a Mobilizing Issue
Matt Barreto & Loren Collingwood
Electoral Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
We evaluate a theory of campaign learning in the context of immigration and the 2012 Latino vote. Following events in Nevada and Arizona after the 2008 election and prior to the 2012 election, we argue and show that Obama's campaign team learned from several Democratic U.S. Senate campaigns in how best to mobilize the Latino vote on the issue of immigration. As a result, we argue, this campaign learning led to an increase in the Latino vote for Obama. To demonstrate this, we compare a group-based appeals model against a traditional vote-choice model, and show that variables measuring Latino Outreach had the greatest impact on the 2012 Latino vote - above and beyond party identification and other traditional vote-choice predictors.
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Brendan Nyhan & Jacob Montgomery
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Modern American political campaigns are typically conceptualized as "candidate-centered" and treated as conditionally independent in quantitative analyses. In reality, however, these campaigns are linked by professional consulting firms, which are important agents of campaign strategy diffusion within the extended party networks of the contemporary era. To test our hypothesis that consultants disseminate campaign strategies among their clients, we analyze new data on U.S. House elections derived from Federal Election Commission records. Using spatial autoregressive models, we find that candidates who share consultants are more likely to use similar campaign strategies than we would otherwise expect, conditional on numerous explanatory variables. These results, which largely withstand an extensive series of robustness and falsification tests, suggest that consultants play a key role in diffusing strategies among congressional campaigns.
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Economic Discontent as a Mobilizer: Unemployment and Voter Turnout
Barry Burden & Amber Wichowsky
Journal of Politics, October 2014, Pages 887-898
Abstract:
Published scholarship argues that a poor economy depresses voter participation in the United States. This troubling result suggests that incumbents are "underpenalized" for bad economic performance. We challenge this conclusion theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, we argue that a worsening economy has a disruptive effect that prods worried citizens to voice concern and seek remedies. Empirically, we analyze county-level data and find that, contrary to earlier studies, higher unemployment rates in fact stimulate more people to vote. We show that the effect is not the result of heightened electoral competition when unemployment is high. The relationship displays a partisan asymmetry in which Republican candidates are especially harmed by higher unemployment. The results also indicate that studies of economic voting need to consider the role of turnout in connecting economic performance to the incumbent's vote share.
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Race, Ethnicity, and Alphabetically Ordered Ballots
Barry Clayton Edwards
Election Law Journal, September 2014, Pages 394-404
Abstract:
A number of scholars have recently argued that ballot order effects give certain candidates an unfair advantage in elections and have urged states to randomize or rotate the order of candidate names to make elections more rational and fair. This article suggests that advocates of reform have been too quick to concede that static ordering methods are nondiscriminatory. One common method of ballot ordering, arranging candidates in alphabetical order by their last names, disadvantages specific minority populations by pushing their candidates down the ballot. To substantiate this argument, I engineer two computer simulation experiments which show a significant link between ballot position and racial/ethnic status under alphabetic ordering laws. Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are particularly burdened by these laws. Because courts apply a higher level of scrutiny to election laws that infringe fundamental voting rights than laws that merely regulate elections, the discriminatory impact of alphabetic ordering rules significantly bolsters the case to rotate or randomize ballot order.
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The decline in the White Vote for Barack Obama in 2012: Racial attitudes or the economy?
Herbert Weisberg
Electoral Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper examines the role of racial attitudes in accounting for the decrease in Obama's vote percentage among whites from 43% in 2008 to 39% in 2012. Studies of voting in 2008 emphasized the impact of racial attitudes. Racial resentment is found not to have increased, and Romney's improved showing over McCain was concentrated among those with very low and neutral resentment levels. Racial attitudes are found to be significant for vote direction again in 2012, but with less of an impact than in 2008, though there was an additional effect of racial attitudes on turnout in 2012. The most important change was that Obama lost the vote boost he had received in 2008 from the economic issue, not benefiting as much as he had then from negative evaluations of Bush's economic performance. Thus, the decline of Obama's vote percentage among whites in 2012 was due more to economic evaluations than to racial attitudes.
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A vote at the opera? The political economy of public theatres and orchestras in the German states
Markus Tepe & Pieter Vanhuysse
European Journal of Political Economy, December 2014, Pages 254-273
Abstract:
Policymakers generally have powerful incentives to attract votes by strategically manipulating public policies, for instance by increasing public spending during election periods or by implementing ideologically valued policies for their electoral base. At first sight, public theatres and orchestras appear an unlikely domain for such tactics. Highbrow culture is elitist and provides few jobs to artists as voters (patronage). However, we argue that policymakers indirectly target a larger highbrow culture-consuming voting public, as this public is more likely to go voting, to actively engage in politics, and to influence other voters' political behavior through political and sociological multiplier effects. We find evidence of such manipulation tactics in Germany, 1993-2010. Artist numbers increase during state-level, and even more during municipal-level, election years (electioneering). More tentatively, leftwing party power increases cultural subsidies and jobs in Eastern states.
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Political Trust and Negative Campaigns: Two Tests of the Figure-Ground Hypothesis
Stephen Craig & Paulina Rippere
Politics & Policy, October 2014, Pages 693-743
Abstract:
Despite what many Americans believe, there is little evidence that increased campaign negativity has contributed to the loss of public trust in government in recent decades. In this article, we consider the relationship between negative campaigning and trust in a different light. The "figure-ground hypothesis" suggests that negative information is more likely than positive information to shape people's attitudes and behavior, in part because negativity "stands out" in a world where most of us have positive expectations of others. Accordingly, we posit that negative campaign ads are most effective among those who possess a high level of trust in their political leaders. The catch is that high trust is uncommon in U.S. politics today, in which case negative appeals may play to a smaller audience than in the past. Our data indicate, however, that a well-conceived negative campaign ad can influence voter choice regardless of one's feelings about government.
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Do non-citizens vote in U.S. elections?
Jesse Richman, Gulshan Chattha & David Earnest
Electoral Studies, December 2014, Pages 149-157
Abstract:
In spite of substantial public controversy, very little reliable data exists concerning the frequency with which non-citizen immigrants participate in United States elections. Although such participation is a violation of election laws in most parts of the United States, enforcement depends principally on disclosure of citizenship status at the time of voter registration. This study examines participation rates by non-citizens using a nationally representative sample that includes non-citizen immigrants. We find that some non-citizens participate in U.S. elections, and that this participation has been large enough to change meaningful election outcomes including Electoral College votes, and Congressional elections. Non-citizen votes likely gave Senate Democrats the pivotal 60th vote needed to overcome filibusters in order to pass health care reform and other Obama administration priorities in the 111th Congress.
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Michael Gilbert
Columbia Law Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
Voter ID laws have provoked a fierce controversy in politics and public law. Supporters claim that such laws deter fraudulent votes and protect the integrity of American elections. Opponents, on the other hand, argue that such laws, like poll taxes and literacy tests before them, intentionally depress turnout by lawful voters. A vast literature, including legal scholarship and opinions of the Supreme Court, accept these two narratives. But these narratives are wrong, or at least incomplete. Voter ID laws can have many effects, including surprising ones like this: they can exacerbate fraud. To illustrate, suppose that without a voter ID law candidates A and B would receive 13 and 10 lawful votes, respectively, and B would receive two fraudulent votes. Candidate A wins non-fraudulently, 13 to 12. Now suppose that with a voter ID law, candidates A and B would get nine and nine lawful votes, respectively (less than before because of depressed turnout), and B would get one fraudulent vote (less than before because of fraud deterrence). Candidate B wins fraudulently, 10-9. The conditions necessary for ID laws to have this effect are simple and may be common. The paper captures this risk with a formula, the Election Integrity Ratio, which judges and scholars could use to determine when ID laws protect elections - and when they cause the very problem they purport to solve. The paper has implications for constitutional law and public policy. It also has broad reach. Any law that deters fraudulent votes, depresses lawful votes, or does both - citizenship and residency requirements, for example, which are used throughout the United States and around the world - are subject to the analysis herein.
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Federal Roadblocks: The Constitution and the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact
Ian Drake
Publius, Fall 2014, Pages 681-701
Abstract:
The National Popular Vote (NPV) interstate compact proposes to change the presidential election system from a state-based federal system to a national popular vote system. NPV proponents contend states can implement the compact without federal governmental authorization. This article addresses the constitutional questions of whether the NPV must obtain Congress's approval and whether Congress has the constitutional authority to grant such approval. In addressing these questions, I review U.S. Supreme Court precedents and constitutional history and find the NPV is the type of compact the Supreme Court would conclude requires congressional approval. Most importantly, I contend Congress is constitutionally unable to grant approval of this compact and the Supreme Court will play an integral role in making this determination.
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Valence politics and voting in the 2012 U.S. presidential election
Harold Clarke et al.
Electoral Studies, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper analyzes voting behavior in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. Using national survey data gathered in the 2012 Political Support in America project, the paper investigates the ability of a valence politics model of electoral choice to account for voting in that election. Multivariate analyses reveal that a valence politics model comprised of judgments about party performance on important issues, flexible partisan attachments, and images of the two major presidential candidates outperforms rival models and provides a parsimonious and powerful explanation of decisions voters made. The analyses show that although several factors had significant effects on the vote, the impact of candidate images was especially strong. Although many voters expressed doubts about Obama's competence, even more were unconvinced that Romney offered a viable alternative. Most voters were unenthusiastic about Romney and this cost him dearly at the ballot box.
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Andrew Eggers et al.
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The regression discontinuity (RD) design is a valuable tool for identifying electoral effects, but this design is only effective when relevant actors do not have precise control over election results. Several recent papers contend that such precise control is possible in large elections, pointing out that the incumbent party is more likely to win very close elections in the United States House of Representatives in recent periods. In this article, we examine whether similar patterns occur in other electoral settings, including the U.S. House in other time periods, statewide, state legislative, and mayoral races in the U.S. and national or local elections in nine other countries. No other case exhibits this pattern. We also cast doubt on suggested explanations for incumbent success in close House races. We conclude that the assumptions behind the RD design are likely to be met in a wide variety of electoral settings and offer a set of best practices for RD researchers going forward.
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Memory for flip-flopping: Detection and recollection of political contradictions
Adam Putnam, Christopher Wahlheim & Larry Jacoby
Memory & Cognition, October 2014, Pages 1198-1210
Abstract:
During political campaigns, candidates often change their positions on controversial issues. Does changing positions create confusion and impair memory for a politician's current position? In 3 experiments, two political candidates held positions on controversial issues in two debates. Across the debates, their positions were repeated, changed, or held only in the second debate (control). Relative to the control condition, recall of the most recent position on issues was enhanced when change was detected and recollected, whereas recall was impaired when change was not recollected. Furthermore, examining the errors revealed that subjects were more likely to intrude a Debate 1 response than to recall a blend of the two positions, and that recollecting change decreased Debate 1 intrusions. We argue that detecting change produces a recursive representation that embeds the original position in memory along with the more recent position. Recollecting change then enhances memory for the politician's positions and their order of occurrence by accessing the recursive trace.
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Expectation Setting and Retrospective Voting
Neil Malhotra & Yotam Margalit
Journal of Politics, October 2014, Pages 1000-1016
Abstract:
That citizens engage in retrospective voting is widely established in the literature. But to what extent is retrospection affected by the expectations that leaders set in advance? We develop a theoretical framework of how expectation setting affects voters' retrospective evaluations of incumbent performance. To test the theory, we conduct a series of between-subjects experiments in which we independently manipulate both expectation setting and the eventual outcome. In domains where politicians have practical authority, or direct influence over outcomes, setting high expectations incurs a cost in public support if the projected outcome is not attained. The same is true in domains where politicians have theoretical authority, or limited influence, but where expectation setting sends a signal about the leader's judgment. However, in domains where politicians have neither practical nor theoretical authority, setting high expectations is unambiguously beneficial, implying that optimism is valued by voters as a personality disposition.
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Satisfaction with democracy and voter turnout: A temporal perspective
Lawrence Ezrow & Georgios Xezonakis
Party Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Numerous studies conclude that countries in which citizens express higher levels of satisfaction with democracy also tend to display higher levels of voter turnout in national elections. Yet it is difficult to draw causal inferences from this positive cross-sectional relationship, because democracies feature many historical, cultural, and institutional differences that are not easily controlled for in cross-sectional comparisons. We apply an alternative, temporal approach to this issue by asking the question: Are over-time declines (increases) in aggregate levels of satisfaction within democracies associated with increases (declines) in levels of voter turnout within these democracies? Our temporal analysis of this relationship in 12 democracies over the period 1976-2011 reveals a pattern that is the opposite of that suggested by previous cross-sectional studies: namely, we find that over-time increases in citizens' satisfaction with democracy are associated with significant decreases in voter turnout in national elections in these countries.
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Cheryl Boudreau, Christopher Elmendorf & Scott MacKenzie
Election Law Journal, forthcoming
Abstract:
Many legal scholars and political practitioners advocate using election law to increase voters' access to political information, either by providing such information directly on ballots or in ballot pamphlets. To date, however, little empirical evidence exists to guide policymakers and judges charged with weighing the benefits of such legal interventions against any costs they might impose. We address this gap by conducting survey experiments to examine three types of political information that legal interventions can make available or withhold: political party endorsements, endorsements from prominent public officials, and a nonpartisan voter guide describing candidates' policy positions. Our results provide evidence that such legal interventions can yield tangible benefits - namely, helping voters choose candidates whose policy views are similar to their own.
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Making Young Voters: The Impact of Preregistration on Youth Turnout
John Holbein & Sunshine Hillygus
Duke University Working Paper, August 2014
Abstract:
Recent research has cast doubt on the potential for many electoral reforms to increase voter turnout. In this paper we examine the effectiveness of preregistration laws, which allow young citizens to register before being eligible to vote. We use two empirical approaches to evaluate the impact of preregistration on youth turnout. First, we implement difference-in-difference and lag models to bracket the causal effect of preregistration implementation using the 2000-2012 Current Population Survey. Second, focusing on the state of Florida, we leverage a discontinuity based on date of birth to estimate the effect of increased preregistration exposure on the turnout of young registrants. In both approaches we find preregistration increases voter turnout, with equal effectiveness for various subgroups in the electorate. More broadly, observed patterns suggest that the campaign context and supporting institutions may help to determine when and if electoral reforms are effective.