Senate Campaigns Research Articles

Gender and Attack Advertising in U.S. Senate Campaigns

We examine if candidate gender influences the issues opponents use in advertising attacks against them in U.S. Senate campaigns. We find evidence that candidates consider partisan issue ownership and issue salience when choosing the topics on which to engage opponents. However, the gender identity of the opponent does not have measurable effects on the selection of issues mentioned in contrast and attack advertising. While highlighting the dominance of partisanship as a key concern in the formulation of attacks against opponents, this study also illustrates the very different issue landscapes faced by women running as Republicans and Democrats, where Democratic women are most likely to face attacks on the issues where both party and gender stereotypes place them at a disadvantage while Republican women are most likely to be attacked where partisan issue ownership puts them at a disadvantage but their gender identity gives them a reputational edge.

Language of Political Campaign: Unraveling the Linguistic Landscape in Billboard Advertisements

Billboard advertisements for legislative and senatorial campaigns are integral to the cityscape leading to the general elections, reflecting local political dynamics. This study examines the linguistic landscape in billboard advertisements for legislative and senator campaigns heading for the general election in Indonesia. A qualitative method was employed, gathering data from billboard advertisements across various city areas. Analysis was conducted on the language usage, stylistic features, word choice, sentence structure, and visual representations in these billboard advertisements. Findings indicate a variation in language usage, with standard Indonesian predominating but also a presence of local language mixtures. Stylistic features range from persuasive to informative, while word choice tends toward positively connotated terms. Sentence structures tend to be simple and direct, while visual representations emphasize the candidates and symbols reflecting political aspirations. These results depict candidates' complex communication strategies influencing voter opinions and attitudes. A profound understanding of this linguistic landscape is crucial for political observers and candidates to comprehend local political campaign dynamics and effective communication strategies. This study added a new dimension to understanding how political communication is manifested in public spaces. By focusing on billboards as an outdoor media, which often serves as a daily backdrop for many people, this study explores how language can effectively capture voters' attention and influence their political attitudes. Thus, this study is expected to significantly enrich the understanding of political linguistics and communication strategies in the context of election campaigns.

The rhetoric of democracy in United States Senate campaign debates

ABSTRACT This project analyzes the rhetoric of democracy, voting, and elections in United States Senate campaign debates during the 2022 midterm elections. Using C-SPAN video archives, we examine candidate exchanges focused on the 2020 election, ballot access, and the peaceful transfer of power. We find that while Democratic and Republican candidates used dramatically different language and arguments to describe their positions on elections, candidates in both parties laid claim to the mantle of “democracy defender.” Democracy functioned as a floating signifier deployed even by election deniers who recast election interference as election protection and positioned themselves as agents of responsive government while obfuscating President Trump’s, and in some cases their own, responsibility for spreading election conspiracies. This rhetorical analysis illuminates how political elites approach questions of democracy and electoral fairness in an era shaped by misinformation and fractured communication environments. Our study advances understanding of the dialectical tensions in conceptualizations of democracy and the role of campaign debates in a post-truth rhetorical climate.

Dynamics of Campaign, Press, and Public Discourse in Electoral Politics

ABSTRACT Utilizing agenda-building theory, we explore how campaigns and parties influenced press and public agendas during Florida’s 2018 midterm election. We investigate if the Gubernatorial and Senate campaigns transferred issue salience and affective attributes to press coverage and online public discourse. Results of a mixed-method computer-assisted content analysis suggest weak transfer of issue salience and affective attributes by the campaigns and parties to the press and public agendas. The DeSantis campaign and Republican Party were the most successful at influencing press coverage and public discourse. First-level agenda-setting was observed by press coverage on the Gillum campaign and Democratic Party's agendas. The symmetry between these findings and election results offers correlational support for the limited effects of first- and second-level agenda-building and -setting in state elections.

Elite polarization and mass policy attitudes: A study of the 2010 senate election

Objectives This study aims to test the extent to which campaigns along with partisanship polarized public attitudes on a series of major policy issues during the 2010 Senate elections. Methods Data are drawn from the 2010 Cooperative Congressional Election Study data and Campaign Media Analysis Group data, which are provided by Wesleyan Media Project. Results The findings of this article are two-fold: First, the 2010 Senate campaigns did not sweepingly boost mass polarization on policy attitudes in general. Second, polarization effect only demonstrated among low-information voters on economic policy issues but little on moral and non-economic issues. Conclusion This article argues that elite-driven mass polarization is based on a matrix of interconnecting varying degrees of information intensity, predispositions, and voters’ awareness level. In the context of low-intensity campaigns, low-information citizens are more likely to follow the party communications and thus are more likely to polarize their attitudes on self-interest issues.

Selling them Short? Differences in News Coverage of Female and Male Candidate Qualifications

We draw on research from gender stereotypes and mass communication to develop and test an innovative theoretical framework of implicit and explicit gender framing. This framework delineates how and when coverage in newspapers will report on female candidates differently than male candidates. Implicit gender frames subtly draw on masculine stereotypes to reinforce patriarchal power structures through their coverage of political candidates. Explicit gender frames are the overtly sexist “hair, hemlines, and husband” coverage women receive more frequently relative to men. We argue that the print news media will be more likely to rely on implicit gender frames to elucidate differences between women and men running for political office. Using an exhaustive content analysis of Senate campaign news coverage, we find important differences in the coverage of women and men running against one another. We also find the use of explicit gender frames to be especially common in all-female races. These differences in coverage, especially in all-women contests, can perpetuate stereotypic beliefs that women lack the qualifications needed for political office among voters, and stymie women’s progress toward parity in representation.

In the Spirit of Lorenzo & Anita Torrez: The Sunrise of the CPUSA over Tucson, Arizona

The purpose of this article is to document Lorenzo Torrez’ role as leader in the resurgence of the communist party in Arizona after the Red Scare. Based on first person testimony, secondary sources and archival research Lorenzo Torrez’s story was documented. The article highlights Lorenzo’ Torrez’ 1980 U.S. Senate Campaign against Barry Goldwater in Arizona. Such continued research is needed in order to preserve such history for future generations of activist to learn and draw upon in the cultivation of a heightened social and political consciousness in the spirit of social justice for the common good.

Ruining Murray Chotiner: A Forgotten Chapter in the Rivalry Between the Kennedys and Nixon

AbstractMurray Chotiner began working for Richard Nixon in his first congressional race in 1946 and managed Nixon's successful 1950 senatorial campaign and 1952 vice‐presidential campaign as well as handling the vice president's campaign schedule in the 1954 mid‐term elections. Despite Nixon's trust in Chotiner, the latter played no role in Nixon's 1960 presidential contest against John Kennedy. This was in part due to JFK's younger brother, Robert Kennedy, who not only managed his brother's successful 1960 presidential campaign but, four years earlier, used his position as chief counsel of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations of the Senate Government Operations Committee (aka the Senate Rackets Committee) to sully Chotiner's political reputation. This article explores this forgotten chapter in the rivalry between the Kennedys and Nixon.

Authors’ Response

Authors’ Response

The Influence of Goals and Timing: How Campaigns Deploy Ads on Facebook

ABSTRACT We examine how campaigns use advertising in the current digital era – and how spending decisions depend on the stage of the campaign and the particular goal being pursued. Our investigation relies on a database consisting of thousands of ads placed on Facebook by 24 different U.S. Senate campaigns in 2018. In the end, we find that campaigns pursue a large number of goals in their Facebook advertising and that the sequence of the campaign has a major influence on the goals pursued.

Promoting mental health and wellbeing in schools: How the Ofsted inspection process can inspire change and what support is needed in schools

The Society set out to consider how the Department for Education could work with Ofsted to introduce a new psychological wellbeing measure into its inspection regime that was accompanied by the provision of additional psychological support. The importance of this work in the current climate was twofold. Firstly, (at the time of writing) as one in eight children and young people have a mental health difficulty it was important that wellbeing and positive mental health were addressed in schools. Secondly, the Ofsted framework sends a clear message about how teachers and schools can prioritise their time, when this is becoming ever increasingly demanding. The Senate campaign’s Expert Reference Group (ERG) contributed to the BPS’ consultation response to the OFSTED inspection framework. Drawing on the expertise of the ERG, we produced a commentary on the need to ensure the mental health needs of children are identified within schools, called for Ofsted to consider their definition of ‘resilience’ and to consider the wider factors which might contribute towards ‘attitudes and behaviour’. In addition to submitting a response to the Ofsted consultation, we produced a policy briefing calling for whole school approaches to mental health and welling and closer scrutiny of these by Ofsted.Ofsted immediately contacted the Society and we secured a meeting with Ofsted’s Deputy Director. We provided an up-to-date bibliography of relevant psychological research to Ofsted’s Head of Research. However, we were disappointed (as was the other kindred organisations) that Ofsted did not make any significant changes. Our briefing was picked up by The Times Educational Supplementwww.tes.com/news/schools-mental-health-support-should-be-inspected-ofstedThe Ofsted Inspection Framework Consultation response can be found here:https://www.bps.org.uk/sites/www.bps.org.uk/files/Policy/Policy%20-%20Files/BPS%20Response%20-%20Ofsted%20Education%20Inspection%20Framework%202019.pdf

Measuring Emotional Responses to Negative Commercials: A Comparison of Two Methods

We compare two alternative measures for assessing people’s emotional reactions to political stimuli: the traditional self-report measure and facial expression analysis. We recruited participants to take part in a study examining reactions to a set of negative political commercials aired during the 2018 elections. We compare people’s self-reporting of their emotional reactions to negative political advertisements with their expressed emotion, according to the facial expression analysis. We find the discriminant validity of the facial expression analysis is higher than the self-report measure. Second, the self-report and facial expression measures of emotion have little convergent validity: we fail to find a consistent and strong positive correlation between the self-report and facial software measures of the same emotion and the same political advertisement. Third, the facial software measure has better predictive validity than the self-report measure, generating better predictions for the three dependent variables examined: changes in political interest, changes in people’s confidence in elected officials, and people’s assessment of the tone of the senate campaign.

The Delocalization of the Local Election

Local elections are no longer just influenced by, marketed toward, or relevant to only a small, geographically constrained electorate. Social media increasingly connect politics to publics that may extend beyond politicians’ or issues’ local constituencies. Every election—from Senator to alderperson—has been rendered accessible and relevant to broad individuals, organizations, and interests. Now, campaigns—particularly in close races or battleground areas—can canvas beyond the local level to seek donations, campaign volunteers, or to encourage local residents to vote. Social media have become venues to demonstrate a candidate’s likability with users, which are parlayed into local goodwill and electability. And foreign nationals and governments increasingly are using social media to spread disinformation or to otherwise sway local issues. Ultimately, what was once a city, county, state, provincial, or national election can now play out on a global stage through social media, with all of the subsequent influence and impacts. This article uses several geographically dispersed and representative examples to exemplify the delocalization of the local election, including Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate Campaign (the US), the effect of nationwide social media popularity and interactivity on local election results (Taiwan and The Netherlands), and Russian influence in the 2016 Brexit Referendum (the UK). It concludes by calling for new understanding of what political involvement and political action may mean in a socially mediated society.

Polls and Elections: Is Loyalty a Powerful Thing? Republican Senate Campaign Strategy and Trump Coattails in the 2016 Election

Presidential candidates provide a boost to their congressional candidate counterparts, in which congressional candidates should ride the proverbial coattails into office (Campbell and Sumners 1990; Stewart 1989). The 2016 election, however, provides an instance in which the presidential coattails were less than desirable. In this article, we argue that state politics determines the optimal strategy for how candidates should position themselves vis‐à‐vis a controversial presidential candidate. Based on our findings, voters rewarded candidates at varying levels for distancing themselves from then candidate Trump. Specifically, the disloyal strategy, in which candidates completely disavowed Trump, worked best in swing states and among Democrats, liberals, and Clinton voters. The ambiguous strategy, in which candidates took an unclear position on Trump, was less effective, but still received gains in appeal among independents and liberals.

Democratic incumbent resilience in the post-1980 Senate

In the period since the Reagan revolution that disrupted decades of Democratic control of the United States Senate, Democratic senators have proved remarkably resilient when running for reelection. Over the past 600 Senate elections since 1980, Republican incumbents have been defeated at more than twice the rate of Democrats, but won open seat elections at a significantly higher rate. This partisan disparity also appears in incumbent vote share, and is statistically and substantively robust to a range of model specifications accounting for existing theories. A series of explanations drawn from existing research explored in this paper fail to explain this trend, suggesting the need for future research targeting partisan differences in perceptions of parties in Senate campaigns.

Joint Fundraising Committees in U.S. Senate Campaigns The Role of McCutcheon v. FEC

We examine the use of JFCs by U.S. Senate candidates before and after the McCutcheon decision to determine how Senate candidates use these committees and to discover any changes in the use of JFCs and the amounts raised by Senate candidates. We develop a typology of Senate JFCs based the membership of the JFCs and on how the proceeds of the JFC are distributed. This preliminary analysis reveals different types of JFCs, and some modest changes after the McCutcheon decision. We do not find, however, that in the U.S. Senate context, JFCs are significant players that led to an explosion of additional contributions by wealthy donors. Our analysis has made clear that as one digs deeper into the activities of individual JFCs, a much more complex picture emerges of their utility for candidates.

Following Fenno: Learning from Senate Candidates in the Age of Social Media and Party Polarization

AbstractStudents of American politics are indebted to Richard Fenno’s path-breaking work,Home Style, published four decades ago. But, given the book’s widespread acclaim, few have taken Fenno’s prescription to go back home with members of Congress to heart. In this essay, I echo Fenno’s call for scholars to become participant-observers of the political process while offering the modern “soaker and poker” a guide to the pitfalls and opportunities of pursuing such a research project. I respond to Fenno’s methodological treatise, written as the appendix toHome Style, focusing in particular on gaining access and how to remain publicly engaged while observing a competitive Senate campaign. I discuss how changes in American political culture create additional wrinkles for participant observation that must be considered, especially if scholars chose to remain engaged in public outreach. I conclude by addressing the need to consider carefully the ethics of engaging the political world we study, particularly in the light of the Stanford-Dartmouth experiment scandal rocking Montana in the weeks preceding the state’s 2014 judicial elections. We may not all do participant observation, but we should follow Fenno when considering the implications of interfering in the political world as we study it.

Virtual Integration in U.S. Senate Campaigns: An Active Learning Tool for Teaching American Government

The learning objectives of the introductory American Government course, one of the most common entry-level political science classes in American universities, span both content knowledge and civic education. Much research has shown the pedagogical value of integrated learning—taking part in active and authentic experiences with democracy at the local, state, and national level—which links content to real-world experiences and solidifies these learning objectives. But what if it is difficult or impossible (due to resources, logistics, or location) to immerse a college classroom in a political process? In this article, I present a classroom exercise that brings content to life through a virtual integration in real-life American politics. Built around the biennial U.S. election cycle, this exercise assigns each student a candidate for a Senate race to follow throughout the course of the semester. This virtual integration engages the students in active learning by involving them in a real-time investigation of democracy in action, bringing classroom concepts to life and emphasizing the institutionalized uncertainty of electoral outcomes.

A Border Strategy Analysis of Ad Source and Message Tone in Senatorial Campaigns

Political advertising is controversial, as there is widespread concern about money from political action committees (PACs and super PACs) distorting the democratic process. Studying advertising effectiveness is, however, a challenging topic for several reasons, including the endogenous nature of fundraising and ad spending rates. However, the extensive use of targeting based on designated marketing areas (DMAs) creates a setting in which neighboring counties with comparable demographics receive different levels of advertising exposure. In this paper, we leverage these advertising discontinuities along DMA borders to study the relative effectiveness of political advertising on vote shares and turnout rates in 2010 and 2012 senatorial elections. We find that negative advertising sponsored by PACs is significantly less effective than that sponsored by candidates in affecting two-party vote shares and voter turnout. A 1% increase in negative advertising by the candidate produces a significant 0.015% lift in the candidate’s unconditional vote shares. By contrast, negative advertising from PACs is ineffective in increasing its supported candidate’s unconditional vote share. Further analysis reveals that the competitiveness of races moderates the effectiveness of political advertising, providing implications for those managing candidates’ campaigns, PACs, and super PACs. Data and the online appendix are available at https://doi.org/10.1287/mksc.2017.1079 .

Issue Consistency? Comparing Television Advertising, Tweets, and E-mail in the 2014 Senate Campaigns

This research explores the extent to which campaigns are consistent across communications channels in the issues that they emphasize. We compare the issue agendas in candidates’ television advertising, tweets and emails from dozens of U.S. Senate races in 2014, creating a measure of issue convergence for each candidate. We find moderate levels of issue consistency, though issue agendas match more strongly for television ads and Twitter, two channels that speak to a more general audience. Our findings speak to the ability of campaigns to foster a common understanding of issue priorities among the public and the ability of voters to hold candidates accountable for their promises once in office.