Making an Election
Are elite cues necessary to drive the "Winner Effect" on trust in elections?
Cassidy Reller, Anthony Anderson & Thad Kousser
Electoral Studies, December 2022
Abstract:
A rigorous literature analyzing elections in the United States, in established European democracies, and in the newer democracies of Eastern Europe and Latin America have shown that voters on the losing side of a campaign exhibit less trust in elections and faith in democratic legitimacy. Those who experience the "winner effect," by contrast, report greater system support and belief in the integrity of the election. What drives this effect? Is it the election result itself that leads to a direct change in mass opinion or is it the elite messages -- including charges of voter fraud -- that often follow a contest? To disentangle the impact of mass mood from leadership cues as the mechanisms behind the winner effect, we use a regression discontinuity in time (RDiT) design in a recent American election in which the leading candidate on the losing side did not claim to have lost because of vote fraud. We gathered parallel survey samples in the two days leading up to the polls closing and then the following two days once the definitive results became clear. Even in the absence of elite claims of vote fraud, we see strong and immediate shifts in mass views. Once the results became clear, those who supported the losing side became significantly less likely to trust that votes were counted correctly or to be satisfied with the election process, while trust and support for the process rose from pre-to post-election for voters on the winning side. We contribute to this literature by demonstrating that elite cues are not a necessary condition to drive the winner effect; it can be generated by mass attitudinal shifts that follow from the revelation of an election result alone.
Can Addressing Integrity Concerns about Mail Balloting Increase Turnout? Results from a Large-Scale Field Experiment in the 2020 Presidential Election
Daniel Biggers et al.
Journal of Experimental Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
The 2020 presidential election brought expanded vote-by-mail opportunities, a rise in attacks on this process’s integrity, and the implementation of novel programs such as California’s Where’s My Ballot? system to ensure confidence in mail balloting. Can heightening awareness of this ballot-tracking system and other election protections alleviate fraud concerns and raise turnout? We assess whether messages reinforcing election integrity increased participation in the 2020 election through a large-scale voter mobilization field experiment. California registrants were mailed a letter that described either existing safeguards to prevent vote-by-mail fraud or the ability to track one’s ballot and ensure that it was counted. Analysis of state voter records reveals that neither message increased turnout over a simple election reminder or even no contact, even among subgroups where larger effects might be expected. In the context of a high-profile, high-turnout presidential election, assurances about ballot and electoral integrity did not increase turnout.
Does a universal basic income affect voter turnout? Evidence from Alaska
Hannah Loeffler
Political Science Research and Methods, forthcoming
Abstract:
Does a universal basic income (UBI) affect voter turnout? This article argues that the introduction of an unconditional cash payment -- where citizens receive money independent of employment status, age, or indigence -- can have a turnout-enhancing effect. I evaluate the argument using the introduction of the Permanent Fund Dividend in Alaska. Differences-in-differences estimates covering November general elections from 1978 to 2000 provide compelling evidence that the Alaskan UBI has a significant positive effect on turnout. The results further suggest that the turnout increase was not a one-off effect but persists over a period of almost 20 years. Thus, a UBI has the potential to positively affect turnout among an entire electorate, adding to the discussion around potential welfare reforms in western democracies.
The 2020 US Presidential election and Trump’s wars on trade and health insurance
James Lake & Jun Nie
European Journal of Political Economy, forthcoming
Abstract:
The trade war initiated by the Trump administration is the largest since the US imposed the Smoot-Hawley tariffs in the 1930s and was still raging when he left office. We analyze how the trade war impacted the 2020 US Presidential election. Our results highlight the political salience of the trade war: US trade war tariffs boosted Trump’s support but foreign retaliation hurt Trump. In particular, the pro-Trump effects of US trade war tariffs were crucial for Trump crossing the recount thresholds in Georgia and Wisconsin. Even more important politically, voters abandoned Trump in counties with large expansions of health insurance coverage since the Affordable Care Act, presumably fearing the roll-back of such expansion. Absent this anti-Trump effect, Trump would have been on the precipice of re-election by winning Georgia, Arizona, Nevada, and only losing Wisconsin by a few thousand votes. These effects of the trade war and health insurance coverage expansion cross political and racial lines, suggesting the mechanism operates through the impact on local economies rather than political polarization.
Out of Step and Still in Congress? Electoral Consequences of Incumbent and Challenger Positioning Across Time
Brandice Canes-Wrone & Michael Kistner
Quarterly Journal of Political Science, Summer 2022, Pages 389-420
Abstract:
Recent research suggests that the penalty congressional candidates pay for ideological extremism declined abruptly in 1994 when the House majority became competitive for the first time in decades. We reexamine congressional accountability in light of this evidence, first evaluating the centrality of 1994 as a turning point and then allowing that voters may not weigh incumbents’ and challengers’ positions equally. Several findings emerge. Even when the penalty for extremism is constrained to be equal for challengers and incumbents, accountability does not abruptly decline in 1994 but instead decreases gradually from 1980 through recent elections. Furthermore, once incumbent and challenger ideology are examined separately, the results on incumbents do not match those for challengers. Depending on the specification and ideology measure, incumbent accountability may stay similar, decrease, or even increase over time. By comparison, the relationship between challenger ideology and vote share consistently declines across electoral cycles. These results suggest that analyses treating incumbents and challengers identically will be prone to find decreased congressional accountability, even when the evidence on incumbents does not merit such a conclusion.
Do Party Rules Matter? An Examination of State Party Bylaws and Congressional Nominations
Matthew Geras
American Politics Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
This paper considers whether the rules governing state political parties help to explain primary election outcomes. I theorize political parties will see lower levels of competition during primary elections when they have bylaws that centralize power within the state central committee. To test this expectation, I created a dataset of state-level party rules by collecting and coding provisions within the bylaws of all 100 state-level Republican and Democratic parties. I operationalize party centralization of power as whether or not elected officials are represented within each party’s formal membership, their state central committee, and whether or not each party has an endorsement or neutrality policy when it comes to contested primaries. I find the centralization of party power does correlate with lower levels of competition in primary elections for the House of Representatives in 2018 and 2020. Specifically, parties are more likely to see uncontested primaries when they guarantee ex-officio state committee membership to their co-partisan elected officials and are more likely to see fewer candidates in general when they guarantee ex-officio state committee membership to their co-partisan elected officials and when they do not have rules that require the state central committee to remain neutral during contested primary elections. While evaluating the causes of this trend is beyond the scope of this paper, these findings appear to be driven by Republican primaries.
Automatic Voter Reregistration as a Housewarming Gift: Quantifying Causal Effects on Turnout Using Movers
Seo-Young Silvia Kim
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
How much can automatic voter registration (AVR) increase turnout? Unlike in many democracies, most American voters face the additional cost of registration, resulting in potential disenfranchisement. Automatic voter registration is naturally expected to promote turnout, but its causal effects have rarely been quantified due to violations of crucial assumptions. I show that a variation of AVR that targets existing registrants as opposed to eligible nonregistrants — termed automatic reregistration (ARR) — increases turnout by 5.8 percentage points. I exploit a natural experiment in a novel administrative dataset; election officials in Orange County, California, notified existing registrants who moved within-county that their residential addresses were automatically updated. The treatment alleviated registrants of reregistration burdens, but only for those who moved before the legal cutoff date, enabling a quasi-random treatment assignment. Contrary to the popular narrative, ARR had no significant effect on the turnout of registered Democrats, but Republicans’ and nonpartisans’ turnout increased by 8.1 and 7.4 percentage points, respectively.
Recovering Voice: Is Out-of-District Giving a Substitute for Local Political Participation?
Sarah Waldfogel
University of Wisconsin Working Paper, October 2022
Abstract:
A growing share of U.S. citizens live in electorally lopsided congressional districts, which may depress their political participation. While citizens can only vote in their districts' elections, they may donate to candidates anywhere in the country, raising the question of whether individuals disengaged by their electorally lopsided home districts find voice through greater non-local giving. I use the post-2010 congressional redistricting that exogenously reassigned individuals to more, or less, competitive districts to explore this directly. When an individual's district becomes less competitive, she donates less to her district's House candidates and more to out-of-district candidates. Hence, givers regard local and non-local giving as substitutes: a dollar reduction in local giving increases non-local giving by $0.48. The substitution is strongest for competitive out-of-district races, suggesting that individuals give with the intention of helping their party win nationally.
Polarization and Campaign Spending in Elections
Alexander Hirsch
Journal of Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
I develop a Downsian model of electoral competition in which candidates with policy and office motivations use platforms and campaign spending to gain the median voter’s support. The unique equilibrium involves randomizing over platforms and spending and exhibits the following properties: (i) ex ante uncertainty about the winner, (ii) platform divergence, (iii) inefficiency in spending and outcomes, (iv) polarization, and (v) voter extremism. I show that platform polarization and spending move in tandem, since spending is used by candidates to gain support for extreme platforms. Factors that contribute to both include the candidates’ desire for extreme policies and their capability at translating spending into support for them. I also show that strong incumbents parlay an advantage into more extreme platforms, consistent with the classic marginality hypothesis but contrasting with a large theoretical literature in which candidates with an (exogenous or endogenous) valence advantage tend to moderate their platforms.
Laboratories of Democratic Backsliding
Jacob Grumbach
American Political Science Review, forthcoming
Abstract:
The Trump presidency generated concern about democratic backsliding and renewed interest in measuring the national democratic performance of the United States. However, the US has a decentralized form of federalism that administers democratic institutions at the state level. Using 51 indicators of electoral democracy from 2000 to 2018, I develop a measure of subnational democratic performance, the State Democracy Index. I then test theories of democratic expansion and backsliding based in party competition, polarization, demographic change, and the group interests of national party coalitions. Difference-in-differences results suggest a minimal role for all factors except Republican control of state government, which dramatically reduces states’ democratic performance during this period. This result calls into question theories focused on changes within states. The racial, geographic, and economic incentives of groups in national party coalitions may instead determine the health of democracy in the states.
Explaining the rise of populism in European democracies 1980–2018: The role of labor market institutions and inequality
Andreas Bergh & Anders Kärnä
Social Science Quarterly, forthcoming
Methods: We run country-level fixed effects regressions on populist party vote shares in 26 European countries from 1980 to 2018. We use two different classifications of right-wing and left-wing populist parties and control for employment protection strictness as measured by OECD, Gini coefficients of disposable income, and a large set of control variables.
Results: Unemployment is positively associated with left-wing populism. Strict employment protection is positively associated with right-wing populism. Gini inequality of income is unrelated to (both types of) populism.