Voter Support Research Articles

Hispanics’ Perceptions of Candidates & Voting in the 2018 Texas Senate Election

ABSTRACT This study examines Hispanic voters’ use of campaign information to form beliefs about candidates, evaluate them, and make voting decisions. Accordingly, we test a model of Hispanic voting using survey data (N = 424) collected during the 2018 Texas senate election and featuring Anglo Democrat, Beto O’Rourke, and Hispanic Republican, Ted Cruz. Although pathways leading to voter support differed for the two candidates, results suggest that exposure to political communication guides voter perception of candidate attributes, such as the candidate’s ethnic identity, which in turn can influence vote choice. Taken together, findings highlight the contribution of campaign communication to Hispanic voters’ candidate preference and voting behaviour.

The Impact of Identity Politics in the 2017 DKI Elections on Anies’ Electability Ahead of the 2024 Presidential Election

Indonesia is a heterogeneous country with a population that has different backgrounds, making it vulnerable to political identity. Identity politics is often an issue that attracts the attention of the public, one of which occurred in the DKI Jakarta elections in 2017. Anies, who is running for president in the 2024 election, certainly expects great support from the people of DKI Jakarta, as the community he once led. However, Anies could not escape the turmoil of identity politics in the 2017 elections. The level of electability of a prospective leader is considered important to gain vote support from the public. Researchers used the theory of identity politics and electability to determine indicators in this study. This study aims to determine whether there is an influence of identity politics in the 2017 DKI Jakarta elections on Anies' electability ahead of the 2024 presidential election. The population of this study is the people of DKI Jakarta with millennial age. The sample taken was 100 people using the Slovin formula. The method used in this research is quantitative in the form of a questionnaire. Data analysis was carried out with the IBM SPSS version 24 program. This study shows that all variables meet the validity criteria. The novelty of this research is that it examines the variables of identity politics and electability which produce data in the form of statistical figures. This study found that the identity politics of the 2017 DKI Jakarta elections had an effect on Anies' electability ahead of the 2024 presidential election.

IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PROMOTION STRATEGY AND ITS BASIC TACTICS IN THE PROCESS OF H. CLINTON AND D. TRUMP ELECTION DEBATES

Objective. The objective of the present article is an analysis of illustrative materials of the leading debates of candidates for the post of the President of the United States of America H. Clinton and D. Trump for the purpose of tactful implementation of the strategy for promotion as one of the most effective and most actual benefits of the manipulative discourse field. Methods. The main scientific results are obtained applying a set of general and special research methods, namely: analysis of video and audio materials of election debates, comparison, synthesis, systematization and generalization of scientific literature. Results. In political communication, any strategy is aimed at restructuring the political views of the addressee, at changing his attitude to certain facts, people and events. Political discourse does not have exclusively unique language strategies, but it demonstrates selectivity in the choice of linguistic means depending on their effectiveness in the conditions of a particular communicative situation. In an election campaign, the goal of any candidate is to gain the support of voters. For this, either the strategy of praising “their” candidate or the strategy of discrediting other candidates and parties and views in the eyes of voters is used. Texts of pre-election speeches of US presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are chosen as illustrative material for the study of strategies of manipulative influence. In our research, we use the classification of strategies and tactics of manipulative influence, which is proposed by O. Mykhaliova, because this classification most fully describes the entire range of language and speech manipulation tools applied by politicians. It is outlined that both candidates for the position of the President of the United States use strategies for promotion, which are implemented with the help of appropriate tactics. The promotion strategy is represented by such tactics as analysis-“plus”, presentation, self-presentation, demonstration of professional success, promises and self-praise.

Young voters, older candidates and policy preferences: Evidence from two experiments

Recent elections around the world have seen young voters come out in large numbers to support young leaders running for office, such as New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern in October 2020. At the same time, however, young voters have shown strong support for relatively older candidates such as Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom and Bernie Sanders in the United States. While the former is consistent with the descriptive representation literature, the latter is not. This article deploys an experimental design involving 1000 young participants to analyse young voter support for older candidates. We find that young voters are significantly more likely to support older candidates if they are aware that these candidates champion general left-wing policies, but the same is not true for young candidates. We also find that ceteris paribus younger voters do not prefer younger candidates to older candidates.

The Importance of Communication in Political Campaign

Political communication is not enough just by combining two definitions, communication and politics. It has its own concept, although it is simply a combination of the two concepts. Communication and politics in the discourse of human science are two areas of search that can each be said to be relatively independent. But both have similarities because they have the same material object, namely humans. The similarity of these material objects makes the two disciplines cannot avoid the meeting of the field of study. The main goal of political communication is to convey political information, shape the political image of the candidate, form public opinion and repel ridicule and accusations from the opposition. An election candidate who masters political communication effectively will get the support of the next voters to win the election. Mistakes in political communication will tarnish the image of an election candidate and erode his political career. An election crisis occurs when the election outcome is unclear, particularly when there is no reliable and agreed-upon mechanism for determining the winner. This paper uses agenda-setting theory (agenda setting) as the basis of the study. Study data were collected through content analysis methods. This paper examines political communication stages before the election, which includes research, goal setting, developing campaign messages, and voter relations plans.

The Roots of Populism: Neoliberalism and Working-Class Lives

The Roots of Populism: Neoliberalism and Working-Class Lives

An analysis of the anti-immigration discourse during the official 2016 Brexit referendum campaign

During the 2016 UK referendum on EU membership, most political and media actors highly debated the issue of the regulation of European immigration in the United Kingdom. The political salience of this issue led to attitudinal changes in public opinion regarding the European Union and its institutions. Brexiteers shaped the discourse on European immigration to influence how people chose to vote in the EU referendum. Their anti-immigration discourse had indeed a significant role in shaping beliefs among the public and, hence, in voters’ support for Brexit vote. This paper will assess the role of the Leavers’ rhetorical strategy, which consisted in portraying European immigrants as a threat to the British national community. Using official government speeches, parliamentary debates, press conferences, election manifestos, media interviews, social media and newspaper articles, the following paper will aim to highlight the discursive strategies of the prominent campaigners participating in the referendum debate. Analysing the hostile immigration stance through Critical Discourse Analysis, this article will examine how the Leavers’ anti-immigration discourse mobilised Welfare nationalistic values and beliefs to legitimise the referendum’s outcome.

The effect of flood experience on public preferences for land preservation: evidence from referendum votes

In response to losses of open space, local open space referenda have become a popular means for land preservation in the U.S. This study is the first to empirically examine the relationship between flood experience and voter support for open space referenda. We collect data on open space referenda between 2001 to 2015 from the Trust for Public Land’s (TPL) LandVote database. Flood occurrence and damage data are derived from the Spatial Hazard Events and Losses Database for the United States (SHELDUS) database. Our findings suggest that voters become less supportive of subsequent open space ballot measures if their communities recently experienced a flood event. Our preferred specification indicates that a flood would decrease the odds of a ‘yes’ vote by about 7.5%. If we use flood damage data to measure disaster impacts, our results show that a 10% increase in flood damage is expected to decrease the odds of a ‘yes’ vote by about 6%. These findings are consistent with recent experimental research showing that disaster exposure has a negative effect on preferences for local public good investments.

CSR and Firm Risk: Is Shareholder Activism a Double-Edged Sword?

Few can argue with the notion that corporations should at least consider corporate social responsibility (CSR) to better understand the impact of their operations on society. However, recent empirical tests suggest CSR has an ambiguous impact on firm performance. To shed new light on this debate, we examine the extent to which voting support for nonbinding shareholder-initiated CSR proposals is empirically linked to changes in firms’ underlying systematic risks. Using a rich dataset of proposals in the US from 1998 to 2011, we contribute several novel findings. First, we show that shareholder voting support is nonlinearly linked to changes in systematic risk. Specifically, proposals with low voting support increase risk while those with high support decrease risk. This nonlinearity is particularly pronounced for consumer-sensitive firms that cater primarily to individual consumers rather than for firms in non-consumer-sensitive industries that produce goods or services meant for industrial or governmental use. Second, the 2007–2009 financial crisis exacerbated increases in firms’ systematic risks for proposals with low voting support. Our results, which highlight asymmetry regarding firms’ CSR initiatives, remain robust when controlling for firm-specific factors as well as shifts in investor sentiment. From a risk management perspective, our findings suggest that CSR initiatives need strong shareholder support to realize benefits from the so-called ‘risk-reduction hypothesis’.

Career Concerns and the Dynamics of Electoral Accountability

AbstractQuantifying the value that legislators give to reelection relative to policy is crucial to understanding electoral accountability. We estimate the preferences for office and policy of members of the U.S. Senate, using a structural approach that exploits variation in polls, position‐taking, and advertising throughout the electoral cycle. We then combine these preference estimates with estimates of the electoral effectiveness of policy moderation and political advertising to quantify electoral accountability in competitive and uncompetitive elections. We find that senators differ markedly in the value they give to securing office relative to policy gains: While over a fourth of senators are highly ideological, a sizable number of senators are willing to make relatively large policy concessions to attain electoral gains. Nevertheless, electoral accountability is only moderate on average, due to the relatively low impact of changes in senators' policy stance on voter support.

Promoting Health Equity Through Voter Support Activities for the Inpatient Psychiatric Population.

Individuals with mental illness often face barriers to voting. One of the primary barriers is not being registered to vote. This paper describes voter support activities (VSAs) provided to hospitalized adults on the acute inpatient psychiatric units at Pennsylvania Psychiatric Institute. During the six weeks preceding the 2020 general election, adult inpatients were offered six VSAs and an optional survey examining previous voting behaviors and barriers encountered to voting. VSAs included checking voter registration status and polling location, completing a paper or electronic voter registration application, and requesting a mail-in ballot. Of 189 patients approached, 119 individuals participated in the survey and 60 individuals utilized at least one VSA. This project demonstrates that VSAs are a welcome and feasible resource for psychiatrically hospitalized adults. Psychiatric providers can serve an important role in promoting access to voting-related activities for their patients.

Legislators do not harness voter support for disaster preparedness

AbstractNatural disasters are worsening, but elected officials have not adequately invested in programs that would improve disaster preparedness. Federal spending and election outcomes have been taken to suggest policymakers' failure to support long‐term preparedness results from a lack of interest in disaster preparedness among voters and a pervasive preference among voters for more spending on disaster relief than preparedness. However, our national survey experiment on state legislators and public preferences shows that the public is equally interested in disaster preparedness and relief and that both the public and legislators are open to increases in spending on preparedness. The support for preparedness can be motivated by information about past disaster losses rather than having to make difficult predictions about future losses. This study suggests the lack of preparedness spending stems not from voter disinterest, but from a failure of legislators to harness voter support for preparedness. Specifically, the legislators included in our study report being less responsive to attentive voters' preferences on preparedness than relief.

If not now, when? Climate disaster and the Green vote following the 2021 Germany floods

Can first-hand experience of a climate-related natural disaster make citizens more likely to vote in favour of progressive climate politics? Leveraging the rare occurrence of a large-scale disaster just two months before a federal election, we use a difference-in-differences design to study the short-term electoral effects of the devastating 2021 Germany floods on voter support for Germany’s major environmentalist party, the Green Party. Compared to other German voters, those living in areas affected by the floods were marginally (0.4–1.6 percentage points) more likely to vote for the Greens. The largest increases in Green vote share are observed in municipalities which were directly exposed to flooding. Contrary to expectation, we tend to find larger increases in Green Party support in the less severely affected areas. Despite substantial increases in turnout in affected areas, we find that the observed increase in vote share for the Greens was rather driven by a persuasion effect on voters who previously supported other parties. In the absence of evidence that the floods led to an increase in voters’ issue prioritisation of climate change, our results highlight the limited possibility for major natural disasters to induce increased localised support for Green parties.

Sympathy for the devil? Voter support for illiberal politicians

AbstractMany democracies are witnessing the rise and continuing success of parties and politicians who oppose fundamental principles of liberal democracy. Recent research finds that voters support illiberal politicians, because they trade off policy congruence against attitudes toward liberal democracy. Other studies, however, suggest that authoritarian and populist voters might actually have a preference to vote for illiberal candidates. We argue that both factors interact: Authoritarian and populist voters are more willing to trade off policy representation against support for liberal democracy. To test this mechanism, we rely on a survey experiment conducted in Germany. The results clearly demonstrate that voters indeed trade off policy congruence against liberal democracy. Moreover, this effect is particularly strong for populist and authoritarian voters. Overall, the results have important implications for understanding when and which voters support or oppose liberal democracy.

Characteristics and Meanings of the 2022 Superintendent Election in S. Korea

본 연구는 2022년 6월에 치러진 제8회 전국동시지방선거 교육감 선거의 특징을 분석하고 그 의미를 논한 것이다. 교육감 선거의 결과, 이전 교육감 선거 대비 이른바 진보 진영의 후보들이 대거 낙선하였고, 보수 진영의 후보들이 다수 당선되었다. 이번 교육감 선거의 특징으로는 후보자간 낮은 경쟁률, 약한 정책 경쟁, 당선자에 대한 낮은 유권자 지지율, 지자체장 등 타 선거와 판이한 선거 결과 등을 들 수 있다. 이와 같은 교육감 선거의 결과는 진보 진영의 패배, ‘혁신교육’에 대한 성찰 요구를 의미하는 것으로 논의하였다. 본 연구는 교육감 선거에서의 높은 무효표 비율, 양 진영 공약의 수렴 현상, 10대 유권자 등 교육 당사자의 선거 영향력 문제 등을 교육감 선거 제도 개선을 위해 논의가 필요한 과제로 제시하였고, 향후 지방교육자치 발전을 위해 교육감 선거 제도 유지 노력, 교육감 선거 제도 개선 논의, 교육자치 영역 확대, 교육자치 시행 단위 하향 등이 필요함을 주장하였다.This study analyzes the characteristics of the 8th Korean National Simultaneous Local Election for Superintendent of Education held in June 2022 and discusses its meaning. As a result of the election, compared to the previous election for superintendent, the candidates from the so-called progressive camp were largely defeated, and a majority of candidates from the conservative camp were elected. Characteristics of this superintendent's election include low competition, weak policy competition, low voter support for the elected candidate, and different results from other elections such as local government heads. The results of the superintendent’s election were discussed as meaning the defeat of the progressive camp and the demand for reflection on ‘innovative education’. In this study, the high percentage of invalid votes in the election for the superintendent of education, the convergence of promises from both camps, and the influence of the parties in education, such as teenage voters, were presented as tasks that need discussion to improve the superintendent's election system. To this end, this study argued that it was necessary to maintain the superintendent's election system, discuss the improvement of the superintendent's election system, expand the area of educational autonomy, and lower the unit for implementing autonomous education.

Black Lives Matter, Protest Policing, and Voter Support for Police Reform in Portland, Oregon

Following George Floyd's killing in May 2020, Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters called for police reform in the largest and most diverse protests in U.S. history. The police frequently responded to BLM protesters with force, raising the question of how protest policing may impact public attitudes toward the police. We examined this issue using data from a survey of voters in Portland, Oregon, which was conducted before the November 2020 election, when police reform was on the local ballot. We tested an extended version of the process-based model, contextualized in light of the dialogic model of legitimacy and scholarship on collective action frames. We found that 1) the perception that police have responded inappropriately to protesters is associated with voters’ support for police reform, even controlling for attitudes toward BLM, and 2) this association is indirect through the resonance of pro- versus anti-reform frames. Findings suggest that inappropriate protest policing may be the straw that breaks the camel's back, increasing the resonance of pro-reform frames, reducing the resonance of anti-reform frames, and motivating voters to vote for reform.

PENGARUH GEOGRAFI DALAM PILIHAN RAYA KECIL (PRK) 2020 DI KAWASAN DUN CHINI, PEKAN, PAHANG

The 2020 by election of Chini, Pahang is the first by election held in a situation where the COVID-19 pandemic is still going on but heading for recovery. This by election was held following the death of the incumbent Chini state assemblyman, Dato’ Sri Abu Bakar Harun on May 6, 2020 due to a heart attack. The Chini state constituency is included in the Pekan Parliament, Pahang which is an area represented by the former Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Mohd Najib Tun Abdul Razak, which is one of the strongest BN/UMNO strongholds in Malaysia. This area has a demographic majority of Malay voters surrounded by rural areas including FELDA scheme areas, traditional Malay villages and traditional and modern Orang Asli villages. Therefore, the purpose of writing this article is to analyze the influence of geography in the Chini by election, Pahang 2020. Based on data analysis of Chini by election 2022 results, field observations and analysis of secondary sources such as journal articles and conference papers, the findings show that BN/UMNO victory in the by election, it is expected that the turnout is not much different between the 2018 GE and the 2020 by election. Geographical influence contributed to BN’s victory in terms of perception and political participation of rural voters. Thus, this election shows that the pattern of support of rural voters is still the same which is centered on the political factors of development and known and experienced leadership.

A Socio-Economic Analysis of Polling Booth Catchments at the 2019 Australian Federal Election

Within the Australian political geography literature, a growing body of work has aimed to understand the distinctive socio-economic and demographic patterns that characterize the Australian federal political landscape. Using results from the last two federal elections (2016 and 2019), this paper analyses polling booth catchments in the context of stability and change in voter support. Polling booths are assigned to four possible types-stable Coalition, stable Labor, change to Coalition and change to Labor-depending on outcomes between 2016 and 2019. The polling booths are then given a unique spatially defined catchment which is then compared across a range of socioeconomic and demographic variables. The results suggest significant differences in polling booth catchments across several key indicators. These differences can be used to understand Australia’s political geography’s distinct and changing nature and add an important component to the existing literature.

Beyond the second-order national elections model: Incumbency effects in regional elections in the Czech Republic

ABSTRACT Literature provides four basic theories to explain regional election results and how they differ from national patterns: authority of regional governments, ethnic or linguistic cleavages, congruence of national and regional electoral systems, and second-order election effects. The second-order national election theory explains why regional elections exhibit lower turnout levels, why government parties lose voter support, and why opposition, minor, and new parties gain support. While second-order election theory provides the dominant explanation for countries with low regional power, we argue in favour of an additional explanation based on incumbency effects on parties’ electoral support. We test the explanations on Czech regional and national election data for the years 2000–2020. The results attest to a strong effect of regional governorship, with a bonus of 5 percentage points for parties whose governors run for re-election. Parties also receive another bonus when national-level MPs and local mayors are present on the ballot.

The “Hungarian Model” – the dialectical relationship of the Self and the Other on the background of the 2015 refugee crisis

ABSTRACT In times of ontological insecurity, identities face pressures of reformulation and doubts over their legitimacy. By analysing the discursive practices of the Hungarian Prime Minister, the following paper addresses the complex process of Hungarian identity construction. Drawing on the intellectual heritage of symbolic interactionism and linking it to the current post-structuralist research, I stress the interconnection of foreign policy and the dialectical Self-Other relationship. Additionally, the article strengthens the argument of previous studies claiming that the Prime Minister intensifies the “othering” in his discourse to gain support for his vision of the Hungarian identity and simultaneously increase the support of voters for his party.