Voter Affect and the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election: Hope and Race Mattered

Abstract

American National Election Studies' (ANES) 2008 national survey data were used to explore the effects of pre‐election emotional responses to candidates on presidential vote. Consistent with decades of election study findings, party identification was the most influential predictor of vote choice. Nevertheless, self‐reported emotional responses to Barack Obama and John McCain, specifically hope, pride, and fear, predicted reported vote choice above and beyond party identification, ideology, and other predictors. In particular, the extent to which respondents reported that Obama made them feel hopeful served as a strong and reliable predictor of voting for Obama. Additionally, implicit preference for Whites over Blacks was a significant predictor of vote choice, robust to the inclusion of standard predictive variables, although not when all of the similarly affective emotion variables were included.