Candidate Ideology Research Articles

Giving to the Extreme? Experimental Evidence on Donor Response to Candidate and District Characteristics

Abstract How does candidate ideology affect donors' contribution decisions in U.S. House elections? Studies of donor motivations have struggled with confounding of candidate, donor, and district characteristics in observational data and the difficulty of assessing trade-offs in surveys. We investigate how these factors affect contribution decisions using experimental vignettes administered to 7,000 verified midterm donors. While ideological congruence influences donors' likelihood of contributing to a candidate, district competitiveness and opponent extremity are equally important. Moreover, the response to ideology is asymmetric and heterogeneous: donors penalize more moderate candidates five times more heavily than more extreme candidates, with the most extreme donors exhibiting the greatest preference for candidates even more extreme than themselves. Republicans also exhibit a greater relative preference for extremism than Democrats, although partisan differences are smaller than differences by donor extremism. Our findings suggest that strategic considerations matter, and donors incentivize candidate extremism even more than previously thought.

Perceptions of Electability: Candidate (and Voter) Ideology, Race, and Gender

AbstractPrevious work has shown candidate electability is an important consideration to voters in deciding who to support. However, we do not know what candidate qualities voters consider more electable, especially in the absence of polling information. While scholarship has documented general election penalties for candidates with certain demographic and ideological characteristics, we do not know whether voters actually use these factors when judging electability. Using a conjoint experimental design, we examine how candidate characteristics influence perceptions of candidate electability. We find voters perceive women and minorities as less electable and ideologically extreme candidates as more electable. However, perceptions of electability vary with voter characteristics. Our results indicate that arguments about electability, for many individuals, are based on their own ideological preferences (and to a lesser extent, their identity) rather than systematically viewing candidates with attributes that provide general election advantages as more electable.

Candidate Ideology and Vote Choice in the 2020 US Presidential Election

A prominent literature argues that moderate candidates perform better in general elections, but a competing literature that emphasizes partisan loyalties contests this. The 2020 Democratic presidential primary represented an opportunity to speak to these debates due to high voter information about multiple moderate and extreme candidates running in the same election. We present results from two national surveys (total n = 102, 425) that asked how respondents would choose in an election between one of the Democratic candidates and Republican Donald Trump. Our evidence is consistent with moderates having an electoral advantage: more moderate Democratic candidates receive more support against Trump than do more extreme candidates. Providing information through plausible attacks did not change these results. Notably, Sanders had the highest support after the moderates, but this was due to an implausibly large increase in intended turnout among young voters. Inconsistent with theories emphasizing the strength of partisan loyalties, Republican voters explain much of this effect.

How Do General Election Incentives Affect the Visible and Invisible Primary?

Previous research finds that nominating more centrist candidates increases vote share and win probability in congressional general elections. Yet party primary elections often nominate non‐centrist candidates, increasing polarization between the American parties. We develop a model of choice in nomination politics that shows when and how actors respond to incentives of the general election. We then combine 200 million contribution records with data on 22,400 candidates in 7100 House primary elections from 1980 through 2016. We find that potential candidates and primary voters respond to general election incentives but do not find clear evidence for contributors or the winnowing process. Connecting these results back to our model, this implies that actors in the invisible primary either place higher value on in‐party candidate ideology or have different beliefs about the general election than do primary voters. Our evidence adds to a body of research that suggests primary voters are a larger moderating force than elites in American party politics.

Measuring Candidate Ideology from Congressional Tweets and Websites

Measuring Candidate Ideology from Congressional Tweets and Websites

Political Selection and Economic Policy

Abstract Does political selection matter for policy in representative governments? I use administrative data on local politicians in Finland and exploit exogenous variation generated by close elections to show that electing more high-income, incumbent and competent politicians (who earn more than observably similar politicians) improves fiscal sustainability outcomes, but does not decrease the size of the public sector. I also provide suggestive evidence that electing more university-educated local councillors leads to more public spending without adverse effects on fiscal sustainability. I reconcile these findings with survey data on candidate ideology and demonstrate that different qualities are differentially associated with economic ideology.

A Delicate Hand or Two-Fisted Aggression? How Gendered Language Influences Candidate Perceptions

Gendered language is seemingly found everywhere in American politics. We test the impact that gendered language has on voter support for a candidate, using a validated dictionary of words rated as highly masculine or feminine. In three experimental studies, we find that the use of feminine language causes individuals to perceive political candidates as more liberal. Additionally, liberals tend to prefer candidates who use feminine language, and conservatives prefer candidates who use masculine language, regardless of the sex of the candidate. These effects are mostly mediated, however, by perceptions of candidate ideology caused by the use of language.

Candidate Extremism and Voter Roll‐Off in US House Elections

Growing evidence suggests that extreme candidates perform worse, in part because their party’s share of turnout declines. But does candidate ideology affect the decision of whether to abstain in a House race among voters who already turned out in the presidential election? I examine the relationship between candidates’ ideology and voter abstention in the House contest, reporting two main results. First, fewer voters abstain in elections featuring more ideologically polarized House candidates. A consideration of party effects reveals more nuance, however: In most cases, roll‐off is lower when extreme candidates run, but the effect of an extreme Republican is substantially larger than that of an extreme Democrat. Further analysis suggests that decreased roll‐off is probably due to extreme candidates mobilizing out‐partisans. My results suggest that allowing for the possibility of voter abstention is an important theoretical addition to understanding the behavioral effects of extremist candidates.

Measuring Public Uncertainty about Candidate Ideology: An Application to US Presidential Elections

The development of methods to measure the ideological positions of legislators and other political actors has become one of the most successful research programs in the study of political behavior....

Evaluations of candidates’ non-policy characteristics from issue positions: Evidence of valence spillover

Why do most winning candidates adhere to partisan orthodox positions? While some prior work has examined how issue positions signal candidate ideology, this paper instead focuses on how candidate issue positions affect evaluations of valence. In light of important inferential limitations in using the correlation between observed candidate positions and electoral performance to assess voter responses, we present a large-scale candidate vignette experiment that reveals issue positions affect perceptions of non-ideological characteristics. Candidates with only one of three positions that stray from the “typical” position for their party – being too extreme, bipartisan, or ideologically unusual – are perceived as less effective legislators. This suggests party-consistency may be reinforced by the electorate through changes in perceived valence, and that the observed correlation between candidate performance and issue positions might arise for reasons apart from ideology.

POSTER DI RUANG PUBLIK: SUARA PEREMPUAN CALON LEGISLATIF

This paper explains the knowledge, attitudes, enthusiasm, and ideology of female legislative candidates as stated in posters in public spaces. Using the theory of critical discourse analysis, this paper explains the characteristics of the contents of the slogans of women legislative candidates. It assumes verbal formulation on posters that are supported by the knowledge, attitudes, enthusiasm, and ideology of legislative candidates who are part of the posters posted in the public space.

A voter-centric explanation of the success of ideological candidates for the U.S. house

In recent years, ideological candidates for the U.S. House have become increasingly successful, to the point where their chances of being elected are indistinguishable from moderates. However, scholars have still not uncovered exactly why this is happening. Using survey data from the American National Election Studies, I find that voter-centric explanations of vote choice – a voter's partisanship, ideology, and presidential approval rating – have increasingly predicted their vote choice in U.S. House elections from 1980 to 2016. Using data on candidate ideology, I find that candidate ideology is an increasingly poor predictor of individual vote choice over time. Original experimental data supports these claims, finding only a small electoral advantage for moderates, compared to ideologues of their own party, and evidence suggesting that, at least among Democrats, ideological candidates are rated more favorably than moderates. Taken together, these results suggest that the increased electoral success of ideological candidates can be attributed to changes in voters' decision calculus, rather than structural or candidate-centric explanations.

Candidate Extremism and Electoral Design in U.S. State Legislative Elections

ObjectiveThis study examines the association between the electoral systems used in U.S. state legislative elections and candidate ideological dispersion. Previous work suggests that, under certain conditions, greater district magnitude has a centrifugal polarizing effect on candidate ideology. Cross‐national investigations of this theory have produced conflicting results.MethodsBuilding on this body of research, this paper leverages electoral system variation in U.S. state legislative elections to evaluate whether district‐level electoral system variation influences candidate ideology.ResultsWe find strong evidence for a polarizing relationship between district magnitude on candidate ideology, even under plurality voting.ConclusionThis paper has significant implications for our understanding of candidate ideological positioning in sub‐national contexts as well of how electoral systems affect the quality of representation voters receive from legislators.

Policy over party: comparing the effects of candidate ideology and party on affective polarization

AbstractAt least two theories have been offered that explain the rise of affective polarization. Some scholars, relying on social identity theory, argue that as the relevance of party identification increased, Americans became more likely to see their in-party in positive terms and the out-party in negative terms. Other scholars argue that affective polarization is a reaction to increasingly extreme political actors. This study seeks to arbitrate between these two theories of affective polarization through a survey experiment which asks respondents to rate candidates whose party (or lack thereof) and ideology (or lack thereof) is randomly assigned. In line with the policy-oriented view of affective polarization, respondents reacted far more strongly to ideology than party, especially if it was the ideology of the member of the out-party.

What Goes with Red and Blue? Mapping Partisan and Ideological Associations in the Minds of Voters

To what extent do voters grasp “what goes with what” among key political objects as they attempt to understand the choices they face at the ballot box? Is recognition of these associations limited to only the most informed citizens? We design a novel conjoint classification experiment that minimizes partisan boosting and allows for the relative comparison of attribute effect when mapping voter associative networks, the cluster of attributes linked to parties and ideological labels. We ask respondents to ‘guess’ the party or ideology of hypothetical candidates with fully randomized issue priorities and biographical details. There is remarkable agreement among both high- and low-knowledge voters in linking issues to each party and ideology, suggesting this minimalist form of associative competence is more widely held in the mass public than perhaps previously thought. We find less agreement about biographical traits, which appear to pose greater informational challenges for voters. Notably, nearly identical issue priorities and traits are associated with party and ideology, indicating these two dimensions are largely fused in the minds of today’s American voters.

Advertising Ideology: Using Crowd-Sourced Measurement to Understand Campaigns

We develop a subjective measure of candidate ideology in political communication, based on human coders evaluations of ideological position-taking in campaign advertisements. Our dynamic measure allows researchers to track campaign strategies within an election cycle and across ideologically distinct groups of voters. As an application of our approach, we analyze candidates ideological brand building in US House and Senate elections in 2010 and find evidence that structural features of US elections constrain the ideological brands of congressional candidates. We show that Democratic Senate candidates represented themselves as ideologically liberal in areas that strongly supported President Obama in 2008, but moderated their ideological message in more competitive areas. By contrast, we find no evidence of strategic branding among Republicans. Our results reveal one way in which fine-grained observational measures of political communications illustrate strategic ideological posturing that existing measures based on campaign donations or roll call votes cannot identify.

Ideology and Gender in U.S. House Elections

Studies of gender-ideology stereotypes suggest that voters evaluate male and female candidates in different ways, yet data limitations have hindered an analysis of candidate ideology, sex, and actual election outcomes. This article draws on a new dataset of male and female primary and general election candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives from 1980 to 2012. I find little evidence that the relationship between ideology and victory patterns differs for male and female candidates. Neither Republican nor Democratic women experience distinct electoral fates than ideologically similar men. Candidate sex and ideology do interact in other ways, however; Democratic women are more liberal than their male counterparts, and they are advantaged in primaries over Republican women as well as Democratic men. The findings have important implications for contemporary patterns of women’s representation, and they extend our understanding of gender bias and neutrality in American elections.

Polls and Elections: Exploiting Donald Trump: Using Candidates' Positions to Assess Ideological Voting in the 2016 and 2008 Presidential Elections

Testing theories of how candidate positions affect voting is often complicated by the strong correlation between candidate partisanship and candidate positions. We take advantage of Donald Trump's unusual candidacy to understand how candidates who depart from standard party positions affect perceptions of ideology and voting. We show in both 2016 and 2008 that respondents were more likely to report voting for the more ideologically proximate candidate, an advantage enjoyed by Trump in 2016 at much higher rates, in part because he was perceived as more moderate than prior candidates. What is most exceptional about Trump relative to previous candidates, however, is that voters were much less willing to place him anywhere in an ideological space. Being unwilling to place Trump was correlated with being much less likely to vote for him and suggests that some voters do not reward ambiguous or nonstandard issue positioning. More generally, we find evidence that in the contemporary era of strong partisan attachments, some voters still appear to decide which candidate to support, in part, on assessments of candidate ideology.

Who Punishes Extremist Nominees? Candidate Ideology and Turning Out the Base in US Elections

Political observers, campaign experts, and academics alike argue bitterly over whether it is more important for a party to capture ideologically moderate swing voters or to encourage turnout among hardcore partisans. The behavioral literature in American politics suggests that voters are not informed enough, and are too partisan, to be swing voters, while the institutional literature suggests that moderate candidates tend to perform better. We speak to this debate by examining the link between the ideology of congressional candidates and the turnout of their parties’ bases in US House races, 2006–2014. Combining a regression discontinuity design in close primary races with survey and administrative data on individual voter turnout, we find that extremist nominees—as measured by the mix of campaign contributions they receive—suffer electorally, largely because theydecreasetheir party’s share of turnout in the general election, skewing the electorate towards their opponent’s party. The results help show how the behavioral and institutional literatures can be connected. For our sample of elections, turnout appears to be the dominant force in determining election outcomes, but it advantages ideologically moderate candidates because extremists appear to activate the opposing party’s base more than their own.

Too Liberal to Win? Race and Voter Perceptions of Candidate Ideology

Experimental research has long indicated that minority candidates are perceived as being more liberal than Whites. These expectations may hinder the electoral prospects of minority candidates campaigning for office who need the support of independents to win. Drawing upon a unique dataset of 933 informants (party delegates) and survey data from the 2006 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we investigate the accuracy and implications of these race-based stereotypes for voting in the U.S. House of Representatives. Our analysis indicates that ethnic and racial minority candidates for Congress are typically viewed by voters as being far more liberal than objective indicators would suggest. Moreover, we find that these misperceptions of ideological extremity may harm minorities’ electoral chances at the ballot box, limiting their support among White voters, particularly independents. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for candidates campaigning for office.