Abstract
AbstractIn recent American elections political candidates have actively emphasized features of their fundraising profiles when campaigning. Yet, surprisingly, we know comparatively little about how financial information affects vote choice specifically, whether effects differ across types of election, and how robust any effects are to other relevant political signals. Using a series of conjoint experiment designs, I compare the effects of campaigns’ financial profiles on vote choice across direct democratic and representative elections, randomizing subjects’ exposure to additional political cues. I find that while the financial profile of candidates can affect vote choice, these effects are drowned out by non-financial signals. In ballot initiative races, the explicit policy focus of the election appears to swamp any effect of financial information. This paper is the first to explore the comparative effects of financial disclosure across election type, contributing to our understanding of how different heuristics interact across electoral contexts.
Highlights
In recent US elections, candidates have actively publicized aspects of their campaign finance profiles including the average size of donations, the proportion of small donations, and the local nature of their financial support
Do financial cues affect vote choice once other highly relevant information like partisanship and political experience are revealed? While some studies explicitly control for these cues (Dowling & Wichowsky, 2015; Dowling & Miller, 2016; Rhodes et al, 2019), we know little about how other signals mediate the effect of campaign finance information
The results suggest that while financial cues can affect vote choice, they are relatively inert once other political signals are present
Summary
In recent US elections, candidates have actively publicized aspects of their campaign finance profiles including the average size of donations, the proportion of small donations, and the local nature of their financial support. Financial signals may shift voters’ perceptions about candidates without inducing changes in vote choice, which has substantial implications for the practical utility of the regulation It is unclear how the effects of financial information are themselves impacted by other relevant features of the electoral context. Given the policy implications of direct democratic outcomes, voters may infer useful information about a policy’s likely beneficiaries from campaign finance information by inferring the interests of donors (Boudreau & MacKenzie, 2021) This issue is important given the prominence of ballot initiative policymaking in the United States (Bowler & Donovan, 2000), and the vast sums of money spent for and against propositions each electoral cycle (Stratmann, 2010). This paper, to the best of my knowledge, provides the first test of the comparative effects of financial information on vote choice across representative and direct democratic elections
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