Strengthening ties: The influence of microtargeting on partisan attitudes and the vote

Abstract

Despite the resources devoted to microtargeting in recent election campaigns, we still have a limited understanding of its impacts on the electorate. This article aims to test the reinforcement effect of microtargeted messages on voters’ attitudes. Specifically, it looks at how microtargeting influences the strength and stability of partisan affiliation and the probability of voters changing their vote choice during the 2015 Canadian election campaign. Given that individuals are not targeted randomly, entropy balancing is used to model selection into treatment and create a valid counterfactual for microtargeted individuals. This approach is complemented by an extensive sensitivity analysis to improve confidence in selection on observables. We find evidence that microtargeting reinforces party ties and makes voters less likely to defect from their preferred party.