Retrospective economic judgments predict individual-level changes in vote preference in the US

While many studies have investigated what predicts citizens’ vote preferences, less is known about what predicts change in citizens’ vote preferences over time. This paper focuses on the role of judgments about national economy in the recent past (i.e., “sociotropic economic retrospections”). Two longitudinal studies show that sociotropic economic retrospections (along with partisanship, ideology, and whether incumbent is running for re-election) at a given time point predict within-person changes in vote choice over time. Furthermore, cross-lagged panel analyses found that sociotropic economic retrospections and political preferences may have reciprocal effects on each other. Together, these results illustrate the temporal dimension of economic voting by suggesting that sociotropic economic retrospections not only predict votes at single points in time, but also individual-level shifts in vote preference over time. As such, the association between sociotropic economic retrospections and vote preference is more dynamic than past literature suggests.

Electoral Administration in Fledgling Democracies: Experimental Evidence from Kenya

We examine the effects of national voter registration policies on voting patterns with a large-scale experimental study. Together with Kenya’s electoral commission, we designed an experiment in which 1,674 communities were randomized to a status quo or treatment group, receiving civic education on voter registration, SMS reminders about registration opportunities, and/or local registration visits by election commission staff. We find little evidence that civic education improves registration. Local registration visits improve voter registration, a relationship that increases in poorer communities. Moreover, local registration increased electoral competition and vote preference diversity in down-ballot contests in the 2017 Kenyan elections. Our results suggest that status quo voter registration policies constrain political participation and competition, and that inexpensive policy changes may attenuate the effects of such constraints.

Big Debate, Small Effect: Impact of Televised Political Debates in Slovak Parliamentary Elections 2020

Televised political debates have become a permanent part of electoral campaigns, the campaign finale. However, evidence that such debates can shift voters’ attitudes is mixed, while the impact on voters’ preferences is highly doubted. Our research contributes to this debate based on empirical data on the effects of televised debates in the 2020 parliamentary elections in Slovakia. In contrast to other research on the impact of TV debates’, we followed our participants for a longer period of time after the experiment, which allowed us to measure not only declared vote preference ex ante, but also reported behaviour ex post. We employed a pre-test/post-test experimental design in a controlled environment. The analysis investigates what effect debate exposure has on opinions about candidates’ leadership skills, credibility, and political competence.

Did Shy Trump Supporters Bias the 2016 Polls? Evidence from a Nationally-representative List Experiment

Explanations for the failure to predict Donald Trump’s win in the 2016 Presidential election sometimes include the “Shy Trump Supporter” hypothesis, according to which some Trump supporters succumb to social desirability bias and hide their vote preference from pollsters. I evaluate this hypothesis by comparing direct question and list experimental estimates of Trump support in a nationally representative survey of 5290 American adults fielded from September 2 to September 13, 2016. Of these, 32.5% report supporting Trump’s candidacy. A list experiment conducted on the same respondents yields an estimate 29.6%, suggesting that Trump’s poll numbers were not artificially deflated by social desirability bias as the list experiment estimate is actually lower than direct question estimate. I further investigate differences across measurement modes for relevant demographic and political subgroups and find no evidence in support of the “Shy Trump Supporter” hypothesis.

Candidate Traits and Political Choice

What role do presidential candidate character traits play in vote decisions? To some, the answer is obvious as campaigns, journalists, pundits, and voters frequently differentiate presidential candidates in terms of their personal qualities—traits are deemed important. On the other hand, past research suggests that, while candidate character traits are short term forces, they hold relatively limited in influence on vote preference. However, theoretical and methodological limitations may have hindered past research ability to detect the true influence of character traits in voter decisions. This author reviews past literature, offers a clear conceptualization of candidate character traits, presents ways in which trait may influence vote choice, and suggests areas for future research.

Candidate Traits and Political Choice

What role do presidential candidate character traits play in vote decisions? To some, the answer is obvious as campaigns, journalists, pundits, and voters frequently differentiate presidential candidates in terms of their personal qualities—traits are deemed important. On the other hand, past research suggests that, while candidate character traits are short term forces, they hold relatively limited in influence on vote preference. However, theoretical and methodological limitations may have hindered past research ability to detect the true influence of character traits in voter decisions. This author reviews past literature, offers a clear conceptualization of candidate character traits, presents ways in which trait may influence vote choice, and suggests areas for future research.

Running to the Right

This chapter focuses on the occasion of Republican John McCain's selection of Sarah Palin as a vice-presidential running mate because this event signaled to many voters an abrupt change in McCain's ideological position. In other words, Palin served as an exogenous shock, with the potential to “send a message” to the public about McCain's ideological stance. Using panel data from the 2008 National Annenberg Election Study (NAES), this chapter analyzes the extent to which Palin's selection altered perceptions of McCain's ideology; the extent to which the perceived ideological shift to the right benefited several election-related outcomes such as favorability toward McCain, vote preference, and turnout; and the extent to which the net impact of the shift helped or harmed his candidacy.

The Dog that Didn't Bark: The Role of Canines in the 2008 Campaign

Using the most extensive dataset available on the 2008 election, I examine the impact of dog ownership on presidential vote preference. Canines were elevated to the status of a campaign issue when, during the 2008 campaign, Barack Obama publicly promised his daughters a dog after the election was over, a campaign promise that has since been fulfilled. However, this announcement appears to have unintentionally highlighted the absence of a key point of potential identification between this candidate and voters, and thus to have significantly undermined the likelihood that dog-owning voters would support Obama. I elaborate upon the implications of this finding for future presidential candidates.