Turned Out
The Conditional Effects of Microtargeted Facebook Advertisements on Voter Turnout
Katherine Haenschen
Political Behavior, forthcoming
Abstract:
Facebook advertisements are widely used in modern political campaigning and have come under tremendous scrutiny for their perceived ability to impact elections. However, there is limited evidence as to their effectiveness on voting behavior. An experiment conducted in Texas during the 2018 U.S. Midterm elections demonstrates that longitudinal exposure to issue-oriented Facebook ads may impact turnout, but that effects are conditional on an alignment of message, audience, and electoral context. Despite the large sample (N = 871,479) there is no detectable main effect of advertisements on turnout. Only individuals in competitive congressional districts assigned to receive ads about abortion rights and women's healthcare exhibited a significant increase in predicted turnout (1.66pp relative to a control group); effects were concentrated among female voters. Three other message conditions had no impact on turnout.
Rational erraticism
Frank Bohn & Xue Wang
Journal of Theoretical Politics, April 2022, Pages 219-235
Abstract:
Trump and Bolsonaro are perceived as erratic presidents, but they may actually be quite rational. We explore two channels of manipulation in a polarized society. One relates to swing voters and their perception of a president’s competence. The other one captures the effort by a president to appeal and mobilize her base voters. We model erraticism in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic, but our model could also be applied to other realms of political manipulation. We find that erratic freedom propaganda directed against state-administered lockdowns may help a president in her re-election bid. Paradoxically, if the challenger gains popular support or increases voter mobilization against the president, it is optimal for the president to further increase erratic propaganda in order to increase the mobilization of her own supporters. Our predicted surge in voter mobilization is actually a main outcome of the 2020 US elections.
When and Why Are Campaigns' Persuasive Effects Small? Evidence from the 2020 US Presidential Election
David Broockman & Joshua Kalla
American Journal of Political Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Field experiments document near-zero marginal effects of most campaign advertising on vote choice in US general elections. Some interpret this finding as evidence of "partisan intoxication"---that contemporary American voters remain loyal to their parties even when confronted with new information. We present new evidence consistent with an informational interpretation of this finding: that voters are rarely persuaded by additional information about candidates they know a great deal about, but are more open to persuasion about candidates about whom they know less. The 2020 US Presidential election represents an opportunity to test these competing perspectives due to the presence of one candidate about whom most Americans are very familiar by virtue of his four years in office, Donald Trump, and another about whom Americans know less, Joe Biden. We conducted survey experiments (n=113,742) exposing each individual in a treatment group to two of 291 unique pro- or anti- Trump or Biden messages. Our results are consistent with an informational interpretation of many persuasive effects in campaigns and their absence. We show that vote choice in the 2020 US Presidential election changes in response to both pro- and anti-Biden messages, but that genuine effects of pro- and anti-Trump messages were between much smaller and non-existent. Further consistent with an informational interpretation, we show that vague messages about Biden are significantly less effective than those that offer specific information about him, and that evaluations of Biden are also significantly more malleable than evaluations of Trump. Positive information about Biden also causes Republican voters to cross party lines and say they would support him. These results would likely change if campaigns were to better inform voters about Biden, but raise a puzzle of why nearly all Democratic campaign advertising in the 2020 US Presidential election has focused on Trump instead of Biden.
Vote-by-mail policy and the 2020 presidential election
Eric McGhee , Jennifer Paluch & Mindy Romero
Research & Politics, April 2022
Abstract:
Mail voting became unusually controversial in the 2020 presidential election. Many observers, including former President Trump, believed that more accessible vote by mail would encourage higher turnout at the expense of Republicans. While the literature has tested some of these claims, it has not offered a more comprehensive causal assessment of vote-by-mail policy, nor has any study looked at these questions in the context of the extraordinary 2020 election. We examine the effect of mail ballot access policies both before and during the 2020 pandemic election with county-level data and a variety of methodological approaches. Our results suggest that making it easier to vote by mail—especially mailing every voter a ballot—generally does increase turnout, both before and during the 2020 election. By contrast, the same policies do not have robust partisan effects, and in many models, they tilt the results in a more Republican direction. While some of our findings are sensitive to model specification, the positive turnout effect of mailing every voter a ballot is robust to many alternative approaches. The confirmation of the existing understanding of universally mailed ballots suggests the basic dynamics of the reform are immune to a wide range of disruptive forces.
Diploma divide: Educational attainment and the realignment of the American electorate
Joshua Zingher
Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming
Abstract:
The divide between college graduates and non-college graduates is an increasingly important political cleavage. In this paper, I document the rise of the diploma divide on the micro and macro levels. First, I use ANES and CES data to assess the relationships between educational attainment, partisanship, and vote choice. I find that post-2000, educational attainment is an increasingly strong predictor of partisanship and, in turn, vote choice. I demonstrate that differences in racial and culture war attitudes between college graduates and non-graduates drive the diploma divide. I then show that the increasing salience of education at the individual level has reshaped the macro-level political alignment. Between 2000 and 2020, the percentage of a county’s population with a BA is one of the strongest predictors of changes in vote share, with highly educated counties becoming more Democratic and less educated counties becoming more Republican. Finally, I demonstrate that county-level educational context conditions the effect of degree-holding on individual-level behavior. Having a college education is a stronger predictor of Democratic partisanship in counties where a larger proportion of the population holds a college degree. Overall, these results demonstrate the diploma divide is one of the dominant political cleavages in contemporary American politics.
Experience, institutions, and candidate emergence: The political career returns to state legislative service
Joshua McCrain & Stephen O'Connell
Political Science Research and Methods, forthcoming
Abstract:
More than half of the current members of the US Congress served in their state legislature prior to holding federal office. We quantify the relationship between state legislative service and career progression to Congress. Using close elections for exogenous assignment of political experience across otherwise similar candidates, we show that serving in the state legislature more than doubles an individual's probability of eventually contesting a Congressional seat relative to a similar candidate who lost in a comparable election; it also doubles the individual politician's probability of eventually winning a Congressional seat. State legislatures thus create national politicians out of otherwise marginal political entrants. We then show that the effect of state legislative service on career progression is larger in more professionalized legislatures, highlighting the role of institutions in facilitating political career progression. Our results hold important implications for representation and accountability, and confirm that prevailing institutions can affect political selection via career progression.
Career Concerns and the Dynamics of Electoral Accountability
Matias Iaryczower, Adam Meirowitz & Gabriel Lopez-Moctezuma
NBER Working Paper, April 2022
Abstract:
Quantifying the value that legislators give to reelection relative to policy is crucial to understanding electoral accountability. We estimate the preferences for office and policy of members of the US Senate, using a structural approach that exploits variation in polls, position-taking and advertising throughout the electoral cycle. We then combine these preference estimates with estimates of the electoral effectiveness of policy moderation and political advertising to quantify electoral accountability in competitive and uncompetitive elections. We find that senators differ markedly in the value they give to securing office relative to policy gains: while over a fourth of senators are highly ideological, a sizable number of senators are willing to make relatively large policy concessions to attain electoral gains. Nevertheless, electoral accountability is only moderate on average, due to the relatively low impact of changes in senators’ policy stance on voter support.
District Magnitude and Electoral Competition: Evidence from the California Voting Rights Act
Mark Krass
Stanford Working Paper, April 2022
Abstract:
How do at-large elections affect electoral competition? This paper shows that the adoption of single-member districts in local elections in California caused the supply of candidates to drop, making competitive elections less likely and increasing the share of incumbents who faced no challenger. Paradoxically, the change also heightened competition in the races where challengers emerged, attracting higher turnout, more candidates, and more defeats for incumbents. In short, single-member districts caused fewer, hotter elections. This evidence suggests that single-member districts have previously-unidentified effects on candidate entry choices and may impose democratic harms in some communities -- indeed, precisely where their representational benefits are lowest.
Self-Funding of Political Campaigns
Alexei Ovtchinnikov & Philip Valta
Management Science, forthcoming
Abstract:
Candidate self-funding, in particular self-loans, is a significant source of funding of political campaigns. Self-funding clusters among nonincumbent campaigns, Republican campaigns, and more expensive campaigns. Self-funded campaigns raise less money from individuals and special interests and also spend less. Self-funders are wealthier on average and run in more competitive elections. The analysis of self-funders’ legislative decisions shows that self-funders’ votes, especially those of Republicans, are significantly more sensitive to contributions from special interests that are affected by the votes. The results highlight the importance of considering politicians’ self-funding choices in analyzing voting behavior and the value of political activism.
The effect of presidential election outcomes on alcohol drinking
Isabel Musse & Rodrigo Schneider
Economics & Politics, forthcoming
Abstract:
The growing political polarization and the increasing use of social media have been linked to straining social ties worldwide. The 2016 presidential elections in the United States reflected this trend with reports of fear and anxiety among voters. We examine how election results can be linked to episodes of anxiety through the use of alcohol as self-medication. We analyze a daily dataset of household purchases of alcohol in the weeks following presidential elections. We find that, within 30 days from Election Day, a 10 percentage point increase in support for the losing candidate increases alcohol expenditure by 1.1%. The effect is driven by counties with a higher share of supporters of the losing candidate and is robust to controlling more flexibly for omitted variables related to alcohol consumption. The increase in alcohol consumption is present in the 2016 elections and absent in the previous three presidential elections.
The Relevance of Religion for Political Office: Voter Bias Toward Candidates from Different Religious Backgrounds
Raul Madrid et al.
Political Behavior, June 2022, Pages 981–1001
Abstract:
Over the last several decades, Gallup data shows an increased willingness among members of the public to support presidential candidates from a wide range of religious backgrounds, though a nontrivial proportion of the public is still unwilling to vote for an Atheist, Mormon, or Muslim. What underlies this opposition? We argue that voters evaluate candidates from religious out-groups more negatively on a wide range of dimensions considered desirable for political office, and that this bias should be more pronounced among the highly religious. We show support for these arguments using a survey experiment fielded with YouGov. Atheists and Muslim candidates were perceived more negatively on a large set of traits considered desirable for political office compared to candidates from religious in-groups, and Mormon candidates fall somewhere in between. The Atheist and Muslim candidates were also perceived as less competent on a diverse set of issues.
The Face of Political Beliefs: Why Gender Matters for Electability
Ahreum Maeng & Pankaj Aggarwal
Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, forthcoming
Abstract:
The facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) of a person is associated with dominance and leadership. Our research examines the extent to which a perceiver’s political orientation biases their judgment of a political candidate’s electability based on the candidate’s facial characteristics, and stereotypes associated with the gender of the candidate. Four studies suggest that although fWHR is positively correlated with dominance evaluations of male faces, the same attribution is less likely to be made for female faces. Further, political conservatives show stronger bias than liberals against female faces and are also less likely to elect female candidates associated with lower dominance. Finally, although liberals show greater intentions to vote for females than for males, high fWHR has little effect on voters’ perceptions of females’ electability regardless of their political orientation.