Campaign Literature
Predicting elections from the most important issue: A test of the take-the-best heuristic
Andreas Graefe & Scott Armstrong
Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, forthcoming
Abstract:
We used the take-the-best heuristic to develop a model to forecast the popular two-party vote shares in U.S. presidential elections. The model draws upon information about how voters expect the candidates to deal with the most important issue facing the country. We used cross-validation to calculate a total of 1000 out-of-sample forecasts, one for each of the last 100 days of the ten U.S. presidential elections from 1972 to 2008. Ninety-seven per cent of forecasts correctly predicted the winner of the popular vote. The model forecasts were competitive compared to forecasts from methods that incorporate substantially more information (e.g., econometric models and the Iowa Electronic Markets). The purpose of the model is to provide fast advice on which issues candidates should stress in their campaign.
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Spee Kosloff, Jeff Greenberg, Toni Schmader, Mark Dechesne & David Weise
Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, August 2010, Pages 383-398
Abstract:
Four studies investigated whether political allegiance and salience of outgroup membership contribute to the phenomenon of acceptance of false, stigmatizing information (smears) about political candidates. Studies 1-3 were conducted in the month prior to the 2008 U.S. Presidential election and together demonstrated that pre-standing opposition to John McCain or Barack Obama, as well as the situational salience of differentiating social categories (i.e., for Obama, race; for McCain, age), contributed to the implicit activation and explicit endorsement of smearing labels (i.e., Obama is Muslim; McCain is senile). The influence of salient differentiating categories on smear acceptance was particularly pronounced among politically undecided individuals. Study 4 clarified that social category differences heighten smear acceptance, even if the salient category is semantically unrelated to the smearing label, showing that, approximately 1 year after the election, the salience of race amplified belief that Obama is a socialist among undecided people and McCain supporters. Taken together, these findings suggest that, at both implicit and explicit cognitive levels, social category differences and political allegiance contribute to acceptance of smears against political candidates.
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The Limits of Partisan Gerrymandering: Looking Ahead to the 2010 Congressional Redistricting Cycle
Nicholas Seabrook
The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics, July 2010
Abstract:
This article looks ahead to the 2010 congressional redistricting cycle, and makes the case that the concern over the pernicious effects of partisan redistricting has been significantly over-exaggerated. Those attempting to use partisan control of the apparatus of state government to influence future elections operate under a number of significant constraints, from legal and political factors that inhibit the redistricting process and frequently result in compromise or litigation, to geographical and structural factors that dictate the extent to which electoral boundaries can be effectively manipulated to produce deviations from partisan symmetry. Evidence from the 1990 and 2000 redistricting cycles indicates that the benefits of partisan gerrymandering, where present, are extremely susceptible to subsequent electoral swings. This casts considerable doubt on the utility of partisan gerrymandering as a mechanism for instituting long-term electoral bias in congressional elections.
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Costas Panagopoulos & Donald Green
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
Because Hispanic voters are seldom targeted for campaign communication and because they listen to radio at higher rates than non-Hispanics, Spanish-language radio represents an attractive venue for testing whether nonpartisan mass media messages can mobilize voters. We conducted a large-scale, national field experiment testing the impact of nonpartisan Spanish-language radio advertisements on Latino voter turnout in the 2006 congressional elections. The experiment, encompassing 206 congressional districts, indicates that nonpartisan radio ads represent an effective and cost-efficient means of raising Latino turnout in federal elections.
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Trait Voting in U.S. Senate Elections
Danny Hayes
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
Assessments of candidates' personal attributes are known to affect vote choice in presidential elections, but little work has explored trait perceptions and trait voting in congressional contests. In this article, I examine the role of candidate traits in U.S. Senate campaigns, drawing on unique survey data from the 2006 midterms. I find that voters' evaluations of candidate qualities are less influenced by party stereotypes than in presidential elections and are strongly related to whether a candidate is an incumbent. And just as in campaigns for the White House, trait perceptions affect vote choice. But sitting Senators hold trait advantages that incumbent presidents do not necessarily receive, which makes leadership a particularly influential attribute in Senate races. In addition, trait voting is not contingent on campaign intensity and is strongest among the least politically aware citizens. In general, the results provide evidence for the applicability of presidential trait theories to congressional elections but show that incumbency and political awareness condition their effects in Senate contests.
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Electoral Challenges of Moderate Factions: Main Streeters and Blue Dogs, 1994-2008
DeWayne Lucas & Iva Deutchman
The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics, July 2010
Abstract:
In the contemporary age of party polarization, moderate members of Congress have found their electoral fortunes to be dependent upon their party's control of the House. Whether Democrat or Republican, members of moderate factions surprisingly receive considerably more support - in terms of electoral strategy and finances - when their party is in the minority and less when it is in the majority. This paper examines the electoral challenges faced by members of the Democratic Blue Dog Coalition and the Republican Main Street Partnership in the election cycles of 1994 to 2008.
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Electoral volatility, competition and third-party candidacies in US gubernatorial elections
Robin Best & Steve Lem
Party Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
Third-party participation in plurality elections should be rare, given the low probability of electoral success. In the United States, the entrenched two-party system makes third-party candidacies especially puzzling. We develop a general theory of these candidacies based on the electoral context, focusing on electoral competition and volatility. When electoral competition is either low or high we expect the number of third-party candidates to be high, due to the opportunities to raise attention to policy issues or affect the election outcome. Moderate levels of competition will produce low levels of third-party candidate participation, as there are fewer prospects of drawing votes or attention. Volatility is expected to have a positive effect, since high volatility signals a de-aligned electorate. We evaluate our claims using US gubernatorial elections, 1977-2005. The results support our claims, suggesting that third-party candidacies are shaped by the degree of electoral volatility and competition.
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The Implicit and Explicit Effects of Negative Political Campaigns: Is the Source Really Blamed?
Luciana Carraro & Luigi Castelli
Political Psychology, August 2010, Pages 617-645
Abstract:
Despite the widespread use of negative campaigns, research has not yet provided unambiguous conclusions about their effects. So far studies, however, have mainly focused on very explicit measures. The main goal of the present work was to explore the effects of different types of negative campaigns on both implicit and explicit attitudes, as well as in relation to two basic dimensions of social perception, namely competence and warmth. Across a series of three studies, we basically showed that not all negative campaigns lead to the same consequences. Specifically, especially personal attacks toward the opposing candidate may backfire at the explicit level. More interestingly, at an implicit level, the reliance on negative messages was associated with more negative spontaneous affective responses toward the source, but also with a spontaneous conformity to such a source. Overall, it appeared that negative messages decreased the perceived warmth of the source while simultaneously increasing the perceived competence. Results are discussed by focusing on the importance of implicit measures in political psychology and on the crucial role of perceived competence.
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Palin as Prototype? Sarah Palin's Career in the Context of Political Women in the Frontier West
Mary Marcy
The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics, July 2010
Abstract:
Sarah Palin's public image to date has been one of novelty and inconsistency. Yet her political career is anything but novel. Her political decisions, career history, and public pronouncements have firm roots in a particular model of women in politics in the frontier west. This article examines the parallels, comparing Palin's political career with those of other political women of the west. The research draws on personal interviews with over fifty women elected officials, on the literature related to women in politics, and on the history of political women in the American west.
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Narrow Victories and Hard Games: Revisiting the Primary Divisiveness Hypothesis
Amber Wichowsky & Sarah Niebler
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
The 2008 presidential election offers a unique opportunity to revisit the hypothesis that a divisive primary exacts a tolls on the party's general election performance - neither party had a sitting president or vice president seeking the nomination, the Democratic nomination was contested all the way to the end, and advertising data provide a way to gauge both the intensity and tenor of the campaigns. In this article, we take advantage of these circumstances to distinguish between primaries that were competitive and those that were negative and find, contrary to the assumptions in the divisive primary literature, that a close contest does not imply a divisive one. Moreover, we find that Obama was helped by his tight battle with Clinton for the nomination and that the tone of the primaries bore no relationship to his general election performance.
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The Impact of the Electoral System on Delegate Allocations in the 2008 American Primaries
Mattan Sharkansky
Representation, July 2010, Pages 151-165
Abstract:
The 2008 American primaries demonstrate the impact of the electoral system on the results. Statistical analysis of voting data assess the proportionality used in each of the parties' electoral formulas, and its impact on the outcomes. The Democratic Party uses more proportional formulas than the Republican Party. In the Democratic Party, the proportional representation formulas had a direct mechanic influence in determining the party nominee. This in contrast to the Republican Party, where it seems that voter behaviour changed due to the electoral formulas.
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YouTube and Proposition 8: A case study in video activism
Kjerstin Thorson, Brian Ekdale, Porismita Borah, Kang Namkoong & Chirag Shah
Information, Communication & Society, April 2010, Pages 325-349
Abstract:
The present study uses California's Proposition 8 campaign as a case study for an exploratory investigation of video activism online. We conducted a content analysis of a sample of Proposition 8 videos drawn at random from the results of a keyword search of YouTube. Main findings from the analysis (N = 801) show that a majority of the videos were made up of original content and took a position against Proposition 8. The results also show that video posters on different sides of the debate drew on different mixes of video forms as the election debate progressed. A greater proportion of 'Yes on 8' videos were scripted and professionally produced while 'No on 8' videos were more often amateur creations and served to witness the widespread protests in the aftermath of the election.
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Electoral and structural losers and support for a national referendum in the U.S.
Daniel Smith, Caroline Tolbert & Amanda Keller
Electoral Studies, September 2010, Pages 509-520
Abstract:
The U.S. is one of only a few democracies in the world never to hold a national referendum. Recent national surveys reveal that a majority of respondents approve of a national referendum both cross-nationally and in America is relatively stable. Building on previous work (Bowler and Donovan, 2007), we find public opinion on a reform proposal is fluid and responsive to electoral politics, rather than stable as reported in earlier work. In this paper, we argue that contemporary support for a national referendum in the U.S. is contingent on whether a citizen is a short- or long-term "winner" or a "loser" when it comes to electoral politics. We expect that public support for a national referendum in the U.S., where legislation referred by Congress would be subject to a popular vote, may vary at the individual level because of short-term electoral fortunes as well as long-term structural conditions. Strategic voting as well as losing in candidate races and policy issues may be important, but so might be partisanship, with non-partisans the most likely to benefit from citizen law-making at the national level. Support for a national referendum might also be contingent upon state context, that is, upon use of direct democracy in the state where a person lives, as well as the population of a state. The results based on a natural experiment and 2008 panel survey data provide an important window into understanding public opinion on institutional change more broadly.
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Location of Public Goods and the Calculus of Voting: The Seattle Monorail Referendum
Barbara Sgouraki Kinsey, Hugh Bartling, Anne Peterson & Brady Baybeck
Social Science Quarterly, September 2010, Pages 741-761
Objectives: In this article we explore how the geographic location of a proposed public good on the ballot in a local referendum influences voting turnout. We argue that voters who live farther away from the good, and are thus likely to bear the cost of the good but have no access to it, would be more motivated to turn out in the election. Drawing on the cost-orientation hypothesis, or negativity effect, "that people are more strongly motivated to avoid losses than to approach gains," we expect these voters to derive higher expressive benefits from the act of voting relative to those of voters located closer to the good.
Methods: We examine voting turnout in the 2002 referendum in the City of Seattle on the proposed construction of a monorail. We conduct our study at the precinct level using spatial tools of analysis. We evaluate the effect of accessibility on turnout by means of a curvilinear model that incorporates demographic and political variables.
Results: We find that voting turnout is determined partly by accessibility. Turnout is higher in precincts located farther away from the monorail line than in precincts located relatively closer to the line. Partisanship conditions this effect.
Conclusions: This study provides tentative support for linking voter turnout to the negativity effect via expressive benefits. Voters' location in relation to a public good may affect directly their political behavior by means of their perceived net gains or losses from the good.
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The relationship between electoral systems and political marketing: Israel 1988-2003
Yehudith Auerbach & Talya Yehuda
Israel Affairs, July 2010, Pages 335-364
Abstract:
This study explores the effects of changes in electoral systems on political marketing, and, more particularly, the impact of the shift from the parliamentary electoral system which has been in operation in Israel since 1948, to the presidentary (combined of elements from the parliamentary system, and the presidential system) on the two largest Israeli parties' marketing strategies. Out of 670 political broadcasts by Likud and Labour, 207 were examined for five out of the six electoral campaigns that took place since 1988: the 1988 and 1992 campaigns, before the switch to the presidentary system, the 1996 and 1999 campaigns after the establishment of the combined system and the 2003 campaign, after Israel changed back to the parliamentary electoral system. The findings supported the study's main arguments regarding the extent and direction of the impact of the change in the electoral system on the developments in political marketing. Beginning in 1996, there was a decrease in broadcasts presenting political issues and a sharp increase in broadcasts that focus on personality alone. Equivalently, the percentage of broadcasts addressing the centre of the political map, rather than distinct publics, grew significantly. In 2003, with the return to the parliamentary system, the marketing strategy of the two parties, and more particularly of the Labour Party, changed back to the pre-1992 pattern: a large percentage of the broadcasts focused on issues and not on the candidates' personalities, and addressed distinct target audiences rather than the centre.