Major Party Candidates Research Articles

Voter Ideology and Candidate Positioning in the 2008 Presidential Election

Although classic Downsian theory predicts that candidates should converge to the ideological position of the median voter in the electorate, American elections generally feature major party candidates who offer divergent policy positions. Employing a survey and statistical estimation technique that allows for the estimation of the ideological position of candidates on the same scale as the distribution of voter ideology among voters, the author characterizes the actual degree of candidate divergence in the 2008 presidential election looking at the estimated stances of Barack Obama and John McCain. The results reveal that these candidates took positions that were closer to, and likely even more extreme than, the positions of their partisan and primary constituencies than to the nationwide voter median.

Political Advertising and Persuasion in the 2004 and 2008 Presidential Elections

The 2008 presidential election was historic in many respects. The campaign included the first African American major-party candidate, and neither candidate was an incumbent president or vice president. In addition, one candidate took public funding and the other candidate did not. This latter disparity resulted in an imbalance of resources across the two campaigns, especially in the purchase of political advertising. But did that imbalance matter for who won? Did advertising move voters, and if so, by how much? This article examines patterns of presidential ad buys in 2008 and compares them with presidential ad buys in 2004. It also examines the impact of advertising on county-level vote returns in both years. The results demonstrate some important differences in advertising patterns across years, especially in terms of ad sponsorship and market-level advertising advantages. We also find significant and strong advertising persuasion effects in 2008.

Information Policy in National Political Campaigns: A Comparison of the 2008 Campaigns for President of the United States and Prime Minister of Canada

The parallel 2008 campaigns for President of the United States and Prime Minister of Canada provided a unique opportunity for a comparison of the issues raised in the campaigns of two neighboring countries with many similarities. After exploring the roles of information policy in recent political campaigns, this article compares the information policy and technology issues emphasized in the platforms and positions of the major party candidates in the 2008 races, both between the candidates of each nation and across the border. The article also compares the uses of information technologies by the campaigns to organize and disseminate their messages. As information policy issues are central aspects of the political agenda in technologically advanced nations and those nations that wish to become technologically advanced, the ways in which the issues are raised in political campaigns can be quite instructive about current approaches to and future directions in information policy.

Know Me, Love Me, Fear Me: The Anatomy of Candidate Poster Designs in the 2007 French Legislative Elections

Candidates in many elections spend a significant amount of their budget on posters, yet we know virtually nothing about their communication roles. Based on party strategy and visual communication research, this article argues that poster content is the result of strategic choices by candidates, with major and niche candidates using significantly different poster designs in an effort to influence voters' evaluations. Using an original database of 256 candidate posters from the 2007 French legislative elections and content analysis computer software, I show that niche party candidates consistently emphasize partisan and factual information cues (through size and placement on posters), while major party candidates rely heavily on candidate-oriented visuals and on nonverbal cues (e.g., eye contact) to persuade voters. Preliminary analyses indicate that poster visual design strategies are significantly associated with both major and niche party candidates' electoral performance.

Rejected by the Nation: The Electoral Defeat of Candidates Included in the Self Is Experienced as Personal Rejection

The current research was designed to examine how the outcome of the 2008 United States presidential election would affect participants' feelings of being rejected. Specifically, we set out to test whether participants who favored the losing candidate would feel as if they had been personally rejected. Additionally, we were interested in whether these feelings of rejection would be predicted by the extent to which participants included the major party candidates in their own self‐representation, as measured with the Inclusion of Other in the Self (IOS) scale. We find that conservative participants who included John McCain in the self reported feeling less satisfaction of their basic needs (a composite of belonging, self‐esteem, belief in a meaningful existence, and sense of control), compared with conservative participants low in McCain IOS, and these effects are independent of mood. Applied and theoretical implications of these results are discussed.

Beautiful Politicians

SUMMARYAre beautiful politicians more likely to be elected? To test this, we use evidence from Australia, a country in which voting is compulsory, and in which voters are given ‘How‐to‐Vote’ cards, depicting photos of the major party candidates, as they arrive to vote. Using raters chosen to be representative of the electorate, we assess the beauty of political candidates from major political parties, and then estimate the effect of beauty on voteshare for candidates in the 2004 federal election. Beautiful candidates are indeed more likely to be elected, with a one standard deviation increase in beauty associated with a 1 ½– 2 percentage point increase in voteshare. Our results are robust to several specification checks: adding party fixed effects, dropping well‐known politicians, using non‐Australian beauty raters, omitting candidates of non‐Anglo appearance, controlling for age, and analyzing the ‘beauty gap’ between candidates running in the same electorate. The marginal effect of beauty is larger for male candidates than for female candidates, and appears to be approximately linear. Consistent with the theory that returns to beauty reflect discrimination, we find suggestive evidence that beauty matters more in electorates with a higher share of apathetic voters.

Candidate and Media Agenda Setting in the 2005 Virginia Gubernatorial Election

This study examines relationships among candidate and media agendas during the 2005 Virginia gubernatorial election. Candidate press releases and newspaper articles about the election were analyzed using the computer program VBPro. High agenda correlations indicated that the 2 major-party candidates, Democrat Tim Kaine and Republican Jerry Kilgore, and the 4 major newspapers serving the state discussed similar issues during the campaign. Cross-lagged correlations indicated both candidates' agendas shared reciprocal relationships with the agendas of 2 papers, whereas the candidates set the agendas of 2 others. Intermedia agenda-setting effects were also observed. The candidates' agendas influenced each other during the campaign's hotphase, although post hoc analysis indicated that Kilgore earlier set Kaine's agenda. Implications for future agenda-setting research are discussed.

Online campaigning: an opening for the outsiders? An analysis of Finnish parliamentary candidates' websites in the 2003 election campaign

This article examines the campaign websites of the 2003 Finnish parliamentary candidates. By examining candidate-level online competition in the candidate-centred Finnish context, individual-level variables are brought to attention in explaining website uptake and how campaign sites are used by candidates in terms of functions and sophistication. The findings show that the distribution of the candidates' web presence was skewed towards an over-representation of major party candidates. Moreover, in predicting candidate website functions and sophistication, belonging to a major party was a strong predictor. Candidate competitiveness and incumbency were also found to be significant predictors. Nevertheless, the findings in the article indicate that the relevance of these political factors may be less significant than other factors, for example genre effects, in explaining candidate website content and presentation.

Congressional Candidates' Use of YouTube in 2008: Its Frequency and Rationale

ABSTRACT This study investigates the extent of Congressional candidates' use of YouTube in 2008 and analyzes which candidates were more likely to adopt and use this tool. While 72 percent of the major party candidates for the Senate opened YouTube channels, only 28 percent of candidates for the House seats did so. A multivariate analysis of all major-party candidates for the House shows that better-financed candidates and those in competitive elections were more likely to become early adopters by opening a YouTube channel; open seat candidates were less likely than incumbents to open a channel. A multivariate analysis of how extensively candidates used YouTube revealed that incumbents and better-financed candidates posted more videos to their channels. Candidates from districts with a higher percentage of college graduates also were more likely to post videos. YouTube is best understood as a vehicle for disseminating campaign communications produced by or for traditional media, especially television, and not so much as a new technology tool. Separating adoption from implementation leads to some more nuanced and conceptually important interpretations of the findings in this and earlier studies, and underscores the need to attend to life cycle and technology specific attributes of new media in campaigns.

Party Registration and the Geography of Party Polarization

Are voters in the United States sorting into geographic “enclaves” of determined commitment to one party or the other, or do voting and public opinion patterns hide a fundamentally ambivalent electorate? The most common geographic measure of partisanship—the presidential vote—cannot identify strength of commitment to the parties because voters have no viable alternative to the major-party candidates. We use party registration statistics instead, since voters can safely register with a third party or as an independent without giving up their right to choose a major-party candidate in the fall election. These numbers suggest that the strongest trend by far is not growing polarization but the large and pervasive increase in registered independents. Although the 2008 election was extraordinary in many ways, its impact on these basic trends is ambiguous. We offer some preliminary analysis that suggests this trend is ideologically meaningful and bears important implications for polarization, and then make a case for further research on the independent phenomenon.

How Close is Fundraising in Contested Elections in States with Low Contribution Limits?

Abstract This paper investigates the impact of contribution limits in campaign finance systems on the competitiveness of elections. Theoretically, contribution limits can have different and potentially opposite effects in an election: one effect could be that limits curtail the fundraising ability of incumbents, decreasing their campaign power; another could be that they limit challengers’ ability to raise money, exacerbating the structural advantages of incumbents. In this paper, I examine the effect of low contribution limits on the gap in fundraising between incumbents and challengers, and between candidates in open seat races, using data from state house elections over a decade between 1996 and 2006. Specifically, I consider individual and PAC contribution limits at three levels: (a) $500 and below, (b) $501-$1,000, (c) $1,001-$2,000, all of them evaluated against contribution limits greater than $2,000. The findings are that contribution limits diminish the relative difference in fundraising levels between incumbents and challengers, and increase the share of challenger spending as a percentage of total race spending. For example, $500 limits reduce the fundraising gap between incumbents and challengers by twenty percent. The data also show that limits narrow the contribution gap in open seat races. Individual and PAC contribution limits of $500 and below diminish fundraising gaps between the major party candidates by between twelve and fourteen percent.

Explaining Major and Third Party Candidate Entry in U.S. Gubernatorial Elections, 1980–2005

AbstractWhile much scholarly research has focused on the quality of candidates in U.S. elections, the quantity of candidate participation has received much less attention. Consequently, there is little systematic evidence on what factors stimulate or dampen candidate entry into electoral contests, especially at the state level. In this article, we examine the effects of electoral laws, states' social and political climates, and incumbency on gubernatorial candidacies. We test our claims using an event-count model with the number of candidates contesting each gubernatorial election from 1980 to 2005 as the outcome of interest. We divide total candidate participation into major and third party candidates to observe whether the factors affect neither, one, or both types of candidacies. We find that electoral laws and incumbency play an important role in determining the number of candidacies in these elections, but the effect of these factors varies for the two types of candidates.

INDUSTRY MONEY FLOWS TO MCCAIN

HISTORY HAS ALREADY left its mark on this presidential campaign. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the first African American major-party candidate in the nation’s history, will square off this fall against Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), a self-described political maverick who has shown a willingness to break ranks with his party’s leadership and activist base on a number of highprofile issues ranging from climate-change policy to campaign finance reform. The 2008 election also marks the first time in U.S. history that two senators currently in office are running against each other for president. Because Obama and McCain are sitting senators with legislative records, their positions on key issues have given voters a good idea of what policies they will support if elected. This information, coupled with details released from each camp, is being closely scrutinized by everyone, including leaders in the chemical industry, and has translated to mixed support for the candidates from the industry. “I think ...

The ownership of presidential campaign biographies by libraries: an empirical study

PurposeThis research aims to examine the inclusion of biographies of presidential candidates in library collections.Design/methodology/approachOCLC's WorldCat database was used to search for biographies of presidential candidates that were held by libraries. Only biographies from the two years preceeding and the actual year of a presidential election were included in the analyses.FindingsThe results show that although candidate biographies are plentiful, most are owned by only a few libraries. Recent elections have seen the greatest number of these biographies, many of which have been produced by special interest groups. Analyses show that libraries collect these biographies without regard to party affiliation of the candidate or whether the candidate was victorious.Research limitations/implicationsOnly major party candidates were included in the analyses.Originality/valueAlthough such campaign materials may seem ephemeral, the paper shows that this material provides the raw material for future research on presidential campaigns and its associated advertising.

A modified “winner-take-all” rule for awarding state electoral votes in US presidential elections and a game model for its analysis

A modification of the “winner-take-all” rule for awarding state electoral votes in US presidential elections is proposed. The modified rule has the potential of turning a state that is currently “safe” for either major party candidate into a “battleground” one, forcing presidential candidates to compete in the state and encouraging state voters (interested in the election result) to vote in presidential elections. A model for estimating the chances of a candidate to win state electoral votes in presidential elections with two major party candidates under the modified “winner-take-all” rule is proposed. This model has the form of a two-person game on a polyhedral set of connected strategies with payoff functions each being a sum of two linear functions and a bilinear function. The model is one of the two models applicable for analyzing the proposed rule that are discussed in the article.

Estimating Causal Effects of Ballot Order from a Randomized Natural Experiment

Randomized natural experiments provide social scientists with rare opportunities to draw credible causal inferences in real-world settings. We capitalize on such a unique experiment to examine how the name order of candidates on ballots affects election outcomes. Since 1975, California has randomized the ballot order for statewide offices with a complex alphabet lottery. Adapting statistical techniques to this lottery and addressing methodological problems of conventional ap- proaches, our analysis of statewide elections from 1978 to 2002 reveals that, in general elections, ballot order significantly impacts only minor party candidates, with no detectable effects on major party candidates. These results contradict previous research, finding large effects in general elections for major party candidates. In primaries, however, we show that

Closing the Gap, Raising the Bar

This article examines online campaigning for the U.S. Congress in 2006. Increases in web presence have slowed, but with minor-party candidates closing the gap with major-party candidates in Senate races. A content analysis of the campaign web sites of every Senate and House candidate reveals that baseline informational web content and features have become standardized but that Senate sites are more sophisticated technologically. Multivariate analyses reveal that financial resources underwrite the highest levels of content and constitute a moving hurdle for disadvantaged candidates. Democrats, Greens, and challengers demonstrated more interest in relationship building, and the competitiveness of the race increased the likelihood of using the web site for mobilizing supporters. Features and functionality that allow citizens to coproduce content and interact in two-way communication are not being adopted widely, and it is an open question how candidates might integrate new social networking tools into their campaign strategies.

Incumbent Failure and Partisan Strength: An Explanation of the Emergence and Support of Major Third Party Presidential Candidates in the United States

A strong disapproval among the electorate of both major party challengers is one common explanation for the periodic emergence of major third party presidential candidates in the United States. Simply put, if neither candidate is acceptable, then another candidate will find support among a large portion of the voters. However, this is not necessarily the case. Because modern third party candidates are political entrepreneurs, these candidates will look for fragmentation in the party coalitions and exploit them. Using data from the American National Elections Study, this article will disaggregate the data on feelings about the two major party candidates and who supports them. In doing so, it finds third party candidates tend to emerge when the incumbent president is politically weak and unpopular among both the nation as a whole and their party in particular, regardless of the standing of the other major party challenger. It also finds the idea that people turn to third party candidates after rejecting the two major party candidates is incorrect. Rather, people turn to a third party candidate only if they are disaffected with their party’s nominee. Voters who are unsatisfied with their own party’s candidate would rather look for another alternative and support a third party candidate than vote for the opposition party. This indicates partisanship among the electorate has been stronger since 1968 then previously believed.

Was the Joke on the Democrats Again? Turnout and Partisan Choice in the 2004 U.S. Election

The peak turnout rate in the 2004 presidential election highlights an important question for students of electoral participation: Did the higher levels of turnout advantage one of the two major party candidates? In this paper, we analyze state and county-level presidential and gubernatorial election results in 2000 and 2004, and find that Bush won the presidential election in spite of, rather than because of, the increase in turnout. The partisan effects of turnout varied across gubernatorial elections, and we found no evidence that local partisan minorities benefited from higher levels of turnout.

Candidate Campaign Blogs

Blogs, Web pages that are frequently updated with posts arranged so the most recent post is at the top of the page, were widely adopted by candidates in the 2004 campaign. These online tools that are popular with young voters, though widely adopted as a “hip” technology, fell short of successfully targeting young voters. This content analysis found only 8% of all campaign posts on the official major-party candidate Web sites targeted youth ( N = 106). Although Bush published fewer posts overall, he produced more youth-targeted posts than Kerry. The topics of posts, issues, and message strategies used in youth-targeted posts were analyzed. Additionally, the use of images was explored. The article concludes that campaigns failed to fully employ blogs as a strategic tool to reach out to young voters.