Democratic Candidates Research Articles

BASIC EMOTIONS IN THE 2008 US PRESIDENTIAL DEBATES: WHAT AND HOW

The present study investigates the basic emotions in the 2008 US Presidential Debates. Basic emotions refer to the emotional state or the strong feeling that is revealed through word use. In the presidential debates, each candidate conveyed ideas, information, and criticisms, and they also proposed a number of programs in the debates. In the delivery of the ideas, emotions accompany the speakers’ opinions. The emotions of the candidates were depicted in the words used. Such emotions can be a reflection of personal, group, and/or societal emotions as a result of an evaluation of social phenomena, situations, and conditions faced by people in society. Data used in this study were taken from three transcripts of the presidential debates between Democratic candidate Barrack Obama and his Republican opponent John McCain. All data were classified in terms of literal and non-literal expressions and analyzed comprehensively by using cognitive appraisal theory and other related theories that can be expanded in terms of basic emotion framework, function, value, and politeness framework. From the data analysis, the various emotions were verbalized through literal words or using vocabulary for emotion, figurative languages such as metaphor, personification, and irony/sarcasm; repetition of the same words, phrases, clauses/lexical bundles; and rhetorical questions. These words show how the expression of emotions reflects the function and values. This study is useful for improving communication skills to construct a polite, dynamic, and colorful speech.

Reinforcement in the Aggregate: Partisan Newspaper Circulation and the Presidential Vote, 1900–1928

ABSTRACT While generally understood as an individual-level effect, we argue that reinforcement effects—or the strengthening of existing party loyalties through media exposure—might also play a role in shaping aggregate-level outcomes. Looking across eight presidential elections from 1900 to 1928, this study provides evidence that partisan newspaper circulation was significantly linked to two-party vote share at the county level. Counties with higher circulation rates of Republican dailies had a smaller percentage of votes cast for the Democratic presidential candidate, while a weaker positive association was found between the circulation of Democratic leaning dailies and Democratic vote in non-Southern counties. Some variance in this effect was observed across elections, with some evidence suggesting a weaker association between circulation and vote share as newspapers moved away from overtly partisan content toward a more professional tone. Further, some of the relationships were reciprocal with votes influencing partisan circulation. Results suggest that greater attention be given to the role of the political media environment and how citizens engage with it when understanding macro-level political outcomes.

They’re Not Just Words: The Verbal Style of U.S. Presidential Debate Rhetoric

ABSTRACT Televised U.S. presidential debates are the most-watched, if not the most-researched, political events in history. While prior studies have largely focused on general election contests, this longitudinal content analysis used DICTION software to parse the effects of election level, partisanship, and time on the candidates’ word choices or verbal styles in 35 general and 121 primary election debates. The results indicate that general election debate rhetoric contained significantly more optimism and certainty than primary debate rhetoric. Additionally, the rhetorical cleavage between the parties was located in the primary debates where the Democratic candidates used significantly more rhetorical realism, activity, and commonality than Republican candidates who used more rhetorical certainty. Further, we also found significantly less rhetorical certainty in the 2010s and the 2020 general election debate rhetoric than in the 1960s and 1970s. Finally, we found interaction effects on optimism and realism that also supported our propositions that U.S. presidential candidates’ rhetoric is meaningful at the semantic level, and that their verbal styles may reveal informative perspectives on the speakers and their speech acts.

Authors’ Response

Authors’ Response

The Electoral Impact of Military Experience: Evidence From U.S. Senate Elections (1982–2016)

The belief that a military veteran candidate receives an electoral benefit at the polls based on a history of military service remains a widely held assumption in American politics. However, this assumption of a veteran electoral bonus has rarely been studied by scholars and the limited literature displays mixed results. This article presents the findings of a new study that addresses the mixed results in the literature and presents evidence that demonstrates that certain types of military veteran candidates do gain a veteran bonus in congressional elections. This advantage over nonveterans is conditioned by party, the type of race, and the nature of military service. By analyzing general election races for the United States Senate over 34 years (1982–2016), the study uncovers support for Democratic candidates with military service receiving an electoral bonus at the polls. This electoral bonus is most widely enjoyed by Democratic veterans in open Senate races and with experience in deployed warzones. The key findings suggest that previous conclusions in the literature with respect to establishing a veteran bonus in congressional elections should be reexamined to expand the time period of analysis, restructure the characterization of military experience beyond a binary variable, and include both House and Senate elections.

Multimodal cohesion in persuasive discourse: A case study of televised campaign advertisements in the 2020 US presidential election

This case study points out the ways in which multimodal texture contributes to the dominant persuasive function of political advertising discourse. It is based on a dataset of 27 televised advertisements by the Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, aired during the primary election period between October 2019 and March 2020. A qualitative approach is adopted, combining methods of political discourse analysis and multimodal approaches to cohesion. As an investigation of conjunctive relations between words and images shows, the three dominant modes in this type of mediatized political discourse serve complementary and mutually reinforcing functions: the spoken words in the advertisements typically constitute the central cohesive chain, while written captions on the screen highlight selected political keywords and slogans, and the visual images illustrate and exemplify the line of arguments. On this basis, it is shown that multimodal cohesion supports the three pivotal persuasive strategies of foregrounding the candidate, propagating the political agenda, and polarizing public opinion.

The intersection of race and party: voter perceptions and candidate selection in U.S. Senate elections

ABSTRACT Previous literature suggests that Democratic candidates of color receive less support than white Democrats on Election Day. It has been suggested that this reduced support is due to voters’ ideological perceptions of people of color being more liberal than whites, which translates into perceptions of candidates. However, these studies are frequently limited to white voters’ perceptions of Democratic candidates of color, and the full relationship linking race/ethnicity, to ideological placement, to vote choice has rarely been tested. In the current study, we examine how both the race/ethnicity and party affiliation of Senate candidates shape perceptions of their ideology and vote choice among people of all race and ethnicities. Using the 2006–2018 Cooperative Congressional Election Study, we find support for our hypothesis that Black Democrats are generally perceived as more liberal than white Democrats. These perceptions have real consequences, resulting in fewer votes. Conversely, Black Republican candidates are perceived to be just as conservative—and Hispanic Republicans even more conservative—than white Republican candidates. Findings suggest that the link between race/ethnicity, perceptions of ideology, and electoral success vary according to the race/ethnicity and party of candidates.

Why Do Election Results Change after Election Day? The “Blue Shift” in California Elections

The counting of votes in contemporary American elections is usually not completed on Election Night. There has been an increasing tendency for vote shares to shift toward Democratic candidates after Election Day in general elections, in particular, in recent U.S. elections. Leveraging important snapshots of precinct-level election returns and precinct-level demographic and political composition from Orange County, California, we conduct the first full-fledged analysis of the potential drivers of vote share shifts. Using an original large-scale post-election survey and unique snapshots of individual-level administrative records, we also provide the first analysis of the characteristics of voters whose ballots were tallied later versus earlier in the process. Far from being anomalous, our results indicate that the shifts are consistent with underlying precinct voter compositions and the order of precinct and mail ballot processing at the individual level in accordance with election administration practices. We find the same driving forces in North Carolina and Colorado, and discuss the consequences of the “Blue Shift” for public concerns about election integrity as states push policy changes regarding access to voting by mail.

One Shift, Two Shifts, Red Shift, Blue Shift: Reported Election Returns in the 2020 Election

Shifting vote margins in the hours and days following the close of polls was a highlighted issue in the 2020 election. The tendency of vote margins in recent presidential elections to trend in favor of the Democratic presidential candidate as the count proceeds has been previously studied and given the label “blue shift.” We address how these shifts occurred during the 2020 election with contemporaneous National Election Pool (NEP) data reported by county. States were slower to report overall vote counts if they had large volumes of mail ballots, prohibited preprocessing mail ballots, and allowed mail ballots to arrive after Election Day. We also find that both between- and within-county differences drove partisan trends in the 2020 vote count. Counties Biden won took longer to complete their counts than counties Trump won. Within the average county, Biden’s votes took longer to count completely than Trump’s. Nonetheless, in the first couple of hours after polls closed, there was actually a disproportionate number of Biden votes reported, which we show were likely due to preprocessed mail ballots being reported first.

“Enthusiasm” toward the other side matters: Emotion and willingness to express disagreement in social media political conversation

ABSTRACT To reveal a complete picture of people’s disagreement-related experiences, we explored the relationship between encountering and expressing disagreement in the context of social media settings. We also shed light on the role of three types of emotions – anxiety, enthusiasm, and anger – in determining people’s willingness to express disagreement. Our findings show that frequently encountering disagreement is a positive predictor of expressing disagreement. Those who felt enthusiasm toward the out-party candidate expressed greater disagreement, but the extent of their expressed disagreement declined with exposure to too much disagreement. Our study shows that patterns differed greatly depending on party affiliation. We only observed the positive role of encountering disagreement and enthusiasm in facilitating disagreement expression among Democratic Party presidential candidate supporters. The study employed original two-wave national survey data collected during the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

Ideological Representations in the Nomination Acceptance Speeches of Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton: A Contrastive Study

The study examines the correlation between language and ideology through critical discourse analysis and semiotics of two nomination acceptance speeches of the 2016 American election. It is an interdisciplinary study that combines different fields: ideology, ideological structures, and semiotics. Through a comparative analysis between the speeches of two nominees who run for the American presidency: the Republican candidate, Trump, and the Democratic candidate, Clinton, the study explores the ideological polarization of the self and Other presentations that each candidate applies concerning three themes: internal problems, foreign affairs, and immigration. Besides, the internal problems theme is sub-classified into five sub-issues: crime, violence, economy, American rights, and health care. In this regard, the study focuses mainly on uncovering the hidden ideologies that each speaker utilizes either verbally and nonverbally to reveal how far each speaker can successfully manipulate the language and utilize signs to serve his/her political intentions. Therefore, the ideological square model of Dijk (2006a) is utilized for the verbal analysis to provide an analysis of polarization techniques of the self and Other. The ideological structures and strategies model of Dijk (2006b) is also applied to do a linguistic analysis along with Kress (2010) multimodal social semiotic approach for the nonverbal analysis. The study revealed that Trump and Clinton are varied in presenting self and Other presentations. For the nonverbal analysis, Trump concentrated more on denigrating the negative Other-presentation than boasting the positive self-presentation. On the other hand, Clinton focused on lauding the positive self-presentation than disparaging the negative Other-presentation. However, they both agreed on neglecting the mention of the good properties of the out-group and the bad properties of the in-group. Concerning to the nonverbal analysis, Trump and Clinton also utilize more semiotic modes to boast the self-presentation and perform fewer semiotic modes that denigrate the Other-presentation. On the contrary, Clinton focuses on emphasizing the positive self-presentation than disparaging the negative Other-presentation. Besides, the study introduced a modified model that helps to analyze nomination acceptance speeches verbally and nonverbally.

Politics and Politeness: Analysis of Incivility on Twitter During the 2020 Democratic Presidential Primary

In the past decade, social networking sites have become central forums for public discourse and political engagement. Of particular interest is the role that Twitter plays in the facilitation of political discourse. To this end, the existing literature argues that a healthy political discussion space is key to maintaining a trusting and robust democratic society. Using Suler’s online disinhibition effect as a theoretical orientation, this study seeks to address the extent of incivility on Twitter in discourse regarding the top three 2020 Democratic primary candidates. A total corpus of 18,237,296 tweets was analyzed in an effort to assess the extent to which incivility dominated Twitter discourse surrounding these candidates. Our results reveal that tweets that mention Senator Elizabeth Warren were associated with higher levels of uncivil discourse than tweets that mentioned Senator Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden. Interestingly, there does not appear to be a relationship with anonymity and incivility, as uncivil tweets were just as likely to originate from tweets that identified users’ names as they were to originate from anonymous or pseudonymous accounts. Finally, our findings provide evidence that certain policy issues are more closely related to uncivil discourse than others. Through the use of k-means clustering, our findings illustrate that the issue of gun control and immigration is closely related with mentions of Warren and fiscal policy with Sanders; however, we did not find any policy keywords linked to Biden.

Cuba and Bernie Sanders: Analysis of the Online Media Discourse at a Crucial Moment of the 2020 Democratic Nomination Race

This paper examines the way Cuba was represented in noticeable online media in connection with Bernie Sanders’ aspirations to become the Democratic nominee for the 2020 presidential election. Traditional anticommunism and a historical one-sided view on Cuba in the press, as well as widespread conceptual confusion about “socialism” in US society, converged against Sanders over the run-up to the nomination, especially at a crucial moment in February 2020 when he was the frontrunner and was interviewed by CBS. The paper analyses the reaction of the online press to Sanders’ comments on Cuba during the interview, but also considers other US press reports during 2019 as well as specialised literature on the topic. Discourse Analysis parameters are brought forward to highlight ideological discourse representations in the media.

Understudied questions of Key's friends and neighbors voting thesis

AbstractObjectivesThis study addressesfour questions posed by V.O. Key's friends‐and‐neighbors (F&N) voting thesis that have been neglected in the scholarly literature.MethodsPooled regression of 101 primary and 66 general elections in Mississippi, South Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin for the offices of U.S. senator and governor over the period 2002–2016 yielded a total of 11,263 candidate‐county cases.ResultsF&N effects are most pronounced in primary elections, for Democratic candidates, and for nonincumbents. Also greater F&N effects for candidates whose “home” county populations were less well educated. The relative importance of F&N effects is displaced by social cleavage variables in elections where they are relevant to voter choices, namely general elections rather than primaries.ConclusionThis study begs the larger question for future research of why F&N has greater effect for Democrats than Republicans and whether more Democrats tend to be low‐information voters.

More than “Fake News”?

Abstract While the debate around the prevalence and potential effects of fake news has received considerable scholarly attention, less research has focused on how political elites and pundits weaponized fake news to delegitimize the media. In this study, we examine the rhetoric in 2020 U.S. presidential primary candidates Facebook advertisements. Our analysis suggests that Republican and Democratic candidates alike attack and demean the news media on several themes, including castigating them for malicious gatekeeping, for being out of touch with the views of the public, and for being a bully. Only Trump routinely attacks the news media for trafficking in falsehoods and for colluding with other interests to attack his candidacy. Our findings highlight the ways that candidates instrumentalize the news media for their own rhetorical purposes; further constructing the news media as harmful to democracy.

Trust and tribulation: Racial identity centrality, institutional trust, and support for candidates in the 2020 US presidential election

AbstractWe examined how racial‐ethnic identity centrality, or the importance of race/ethnicity in people's self‐perceptions, affected peoples’ support for the Democratic and Republican candidates in the 2020 US election. We explored this association by examining the mediating role of trust in important social institutions. In Study 1, we examined these effects by comparing the pattern of relationships among people of color (POC) and white people, using a sample of 177 Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) participants. In Study 2, we expanded our focus on different racial‐ethnic groups, by comparing effects for Black, Latinx, Asian American/Pacific Islander (AAPI), and white participants, using a sample of 530 MTurk workers. Although there were a few findings that ran contrary to our expectations, the two studies generally found that trust in institutions that challenge the status quo, such as the media, explained the relationship between identity centrality and support for candidates among POC, especially Black and Latinx participants. We also found that trust in institutions that uphold the status quo, such as police and courts, explained the relationship between racial‐ethnic identity centrality and support for candidates among white people.

Skin tone bias and the US presidency: The portrayal of a Black incumbent and a Black candidate in newspaper photographs

AbstractAcross cultures, darker skin tone is associated with lower social status. We propose that Black politicians are subject to skin tone biases in US newspapers, with hostile biases resulting in them being portrayed as more dark‐skinned. We hypothesized that such biases occur as a function of negative racial attitudes. We contrast this with an ingroup bias hypothesis, according to which partisans denigrate Black politicians of the other side, but not their own side. The present research evaluated skin tone biases toward President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and Dr. Ben Carson, a Republican, in US newspapers. We collected published photographs of President Obama during his first term in office (n = 3781 from 34 newspapers) as well as for Dr. Carson during his 2015–2016 presidential run (n = 1049 from 53 newspapers) from high‐circulation newspapers, which had endorsed Democratic or Republican presidential candidates. Blind coders rated the darkness of Obama's and Carson's skin tone. Multilevel modeling revealed that Democratic‐leaning newspapers portrayed both Obama and Carson as lighter than Republican‐leaning newspapers. Findings did not support a partisan ingroup bias. We conclude that Black politicians of either party are subject to a skin tone bias, where Republican‐leaning newspapers portray them with darker skin tones, regardless of whether they are a Democrat or a Republican.

Gender Attitudes and Candidate Preferences in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Primary and General Elections

AbstractScholars increasingly recognize that voters’ attitudes about gender shape their electoral preferences. Yet previous research has not captured important nuances of the relationship between gender attitudes and electoral choice. We argue that the effects of gender attitudes are not unidirectional and interact in complex ways with voters’ perceptions of candidates, depending not only on candidates’ sex but also on their gender-relevant characteristics and values. We draw on an original survey of Americans during the 2016 elections that measured three gender attitudes—hostile sexism, modern sexism, and traditional gender roles—and evaluations of primary and general election candidates. Our study design increases analytical leverage by examining actual and hypothetical candidate matchups. We find that among Democrats, hostile sexists were drawn to Bernie Sanders, but gender traditionalists preferred Hillary Clinton. Our results also suggest that if Sanders had been the Democratic nominee, gender egalitarians would have strongly supported him over Donald Trump, as they did Clinton.

Demographic Disparities Using Ranked-Choice Voting? Ranking Difficulty, Under-Voting, and the 2020 Democratic Primary

Ranked choice voting (RCV) has become increasingly popular in recent years, as more jurisdictions in the US adopt the voting system for local, state, and federal elections. Though previous studies have found potential benefits of RCV, some evidence suggests ranking multiple candidates instead of choosing one most preferred candidate may be difficult, with potential demographic disparities linked to age, gender, or racial or ethnic identity. Further, these difficulties have been assumed to cause individuals to improperly fill out RCV ballots, such as ranking too many or not enough candidates. This study seeks to answer three interrelated questions: 1) Which demographic groups find it difficult to rank candidates in RCV elections? 2) Who is more likely to cast under-voted ballots (not ranking all candidates)? 3) Is there a relationship between finding RCV voting difficult and the likelihood of casting an under-voted ballot? Using unique national survey data of 2020 Democratic primary candidate preferences, the results indicate most respondents find ranking candidates easy, but older, less interested, and more ideologically conservative individuals find it more difficult. In a hypothetical ranking of primary candidates, 12% of respondents under-voted (did not rank all options). Despite their perceived increased difficulty, older individuals were less likely to under-vote their ballot. No other demographic groups consistently experienced systematic differences in ranking difficulty or under-voting across a series of model specifications. These findings support previous evidence of older voters having increased difficulty, but challenge research assuming difficulty leads to under-voting, and that racial and ethnic groups are disadvantaged by RCV.

Strategic calculations? Partisan differences in support for Puerto Rican migration to the mainland USA

Abstract Building on research about political determinants of migration attitudes, this study examines whether public opinion is influenced by the potential political participation of migrants themselves. We use the opportunity presented by the recent increase in the number of US citizens moving from Puerto Rico to the mainland to investigate how partisanship and political calculations shape attitudes toward their migration. Using data from an online survey experiment in early 2020, we find partisan differences in support for Puerto Rican migration. Democrats were significantly more likely than Republicans and independents to support Puerto Rican migration to the mainland in the aftermath of recent natural disasters, while Republicans were more likely to support Puerto Ricans returning home for the rebuilding process. The partisan divide was exacerbated when respondents were given additional information about the voting eligibility of Puerto Ricans and the possibility that their votes could help a Democratic presidential candidate win the state of Florida in the 2020 election. Specifically, Republicans who received this information were significantly less likely than all other respondents, including Republicans in the control group, to support Puerto Rican migration to the mainland USA. Findings on several related variables also show significant partisan differences, though treatment effects are less pronounced. Although further research is necessary to determine whether similar patterns hold in situations where migrants are not immediately eligible to vote or perceived as supporting one side, this study provides initial evidence that strategic partisan calculations can influence attitudes toward migration in a competitive political context.