Costas Panagopoulos

Thank You for Voting: Gratitude Expression and Voter Mobilization

Political scientists are increasingly exploring the psychological underpinnings of voting behavior using field experimental techniques. Research in psychology demonstrates that gratitude expression reinforces prosocial behavior. This article reports the results of the three randomized field experiments designed to investigate the impact of gratitude expression on voter turnout. The experiments were conducted in a range of electoral settings, and the results suggest thanking voters for voting in a previous election boosts participation levels in subsequent elections. Moreover, the gratitude expression effect I observe appears to be distinct from social pressure and is robust across subgroups of voters, including minorities and women, and both low- and high-propensity voters.

Partisan and Nonpartisan Message Content and Voter Mobilization Field Experimental Evidence

This article reports the results of a randomized field experiment designed to compare directly the mobilization impact of partisan versus nonpartisan messages delivered via commercial phone banks. The experiment, conducted during the November 2005 municipal elections in Albany, New York, incorporates a series of design innovations to improve on extant research and to assuage skepticism about the internal and external validity of previous studies conducted along these lines. The author finds that partisan messages delivered by professional call centers are no more effective than nonpartisan messages in mobilizing voters.

Does Language Matter? The Impact of Spanish Versus English-Language GOTV Efforts on Latino Turnout:

Latino voters comprise a growing segment of the voting electorate, yet their levels of participation in elections lags behind the general population and even other ethnic and racial groups. Recent experimental studies have found mobilization efforts directed at the Latino electorate to boost electoral turnout in federal, state, and local elections. Over the past two decades, campaign organizations and operatives have been increasingly relying on the use of Spanish-language appeals to mobilize Latinos. Surprisingly, the impact of language use in targeting Latino voters has, for the most part, eluded scholarly inquiry. We conduct a randomized field experiment in which Latino voters were randomly exposed to a mobilization message in either English or Spanish. It is, to the best of our knowledge, the first randomized experiment to present a direct test between English- and Spanish-language appeals. The experiment was conducted in the context of a special election that took place in February 2009 to fill a vacancy on the New York City Council for District 21, located in Queens. The results from our field experiment suggest that both Spanish- and English-language mobilization have the capacity to boost Latino turnout. That said, English-language appeals were effective across the board for Latinos in our sample, whereas Spanish-language outreach was only effective among low-propensity voters and participants whose primary language was Spanish.

Spanish-Language Radio Advertisements and Latino Voter Turnout in the 2006 Congressional Elections Field Experimental Evidence

Because Hispanic voters are seldom targeted for campaign communication and because they listen to radio at higher rates than non-Hispanics, Spanish-language radio represents an attractive venue for testing whether nonpartisan mass media messages can mobilize voters. We conducted a large-scale, national field experiment testing the impact of nonpartisan Spanish-language radio advertisements on Latino voter turnout in the 2006 congressional elections. The experiment, encompassing 206 congressional districts, indicates that nonpartisan radio ads represent an effective and cost-efficient means of raising Latino turnout in federal elections.

Extrinsic Rewards, Intrinsic Motivation and Voting

Economists and psychologists often disagree about the impact of rewards on prosocial behavior. Economists generally believe incentives promote effort and performance, while many psychologists warn they depress intrinsic motivation and impair performance. I conduct the first randomized field experiments of which I am aware to investigate the impact of extrinsic (monetary) rewards on voting in elections. In a pilot study, voters in Gilroy, California, were randomly assigned to receive a postcard mailing with either a simple reminder to vote or an offer to receive a financial reward (of varying levels) for participating in the November 2007 election. A large-scale replication study was conducted in Lancaster, California, in April 2010. The results of the experiments reveal nominal incentives failed to effectively raise turnout in elections, but nontrivial incentives elevated electoral participation. These findings yield insights relevant to disciplinary debates in economics and psychology as well as in polit...

Deus ex Machina Candidate Web Presence and the Presidential Nomination Campaign

Using data from the 2008 presidential nomination contest, we offer systematic tests of the relationships between traditional campaign factors, the Internet and campaign performance. We find that claims of the Internet’s relevance to modern campaigns are warranted, as it is a unique facet of campaigns and significantly improves candidates’ financial and electoral support. The Internet is especially helpful to candidates in generating small-donor contributions and in maximizing contributions after early primary victories. Overall, these findings suggest that the Internet offers a viable mechanism for long-shot candidates to overcome the resource demands of the current presidential nomination system.

Campaign Context and Preference Dynamics in U.S. Presidential Elections

Previous scholarship finds that campaigns “matter” in that these enterprises have the capacity to influence voter preferences. Insights about how campaigns exert effects on preferences are less abundant, however. In this paper, we elaborate a theory of campaign effects that proposes campaigns matter, at least in part, because they function as a filter to mediate the impact of events. By amplifying and reinforcing the impact of relevant events, campaigns help voters process campaign developments, permitting citizens to form, crystallize or update candidate preferences. In quadrennial presidential contests, active campaigns are generally limited to battleground states, setting up natural experiments that allow scholars to investigate the claim that competitiveness influences campaign dynamics by generating vigorous campaigns that intensify the impact of events. We examine this hypothesis by comparing the dynamics of voter preferences for U.S. president in battleground and non-battleground states in the fall 2008 campaign using statewide survey data. The results confirm our hypothesis by showing that events exerted both short- and longer-term effects in battleground states, while any impact on voter sentiment in non-battleground states was short-lived.

Boy Talk/Girl Talk

Abstract Using data from a comprehensive database of political advertisements broadcast during the 1998 congressional election cycle, this study assesses whether male and female candidates follow different campaign communications strategies. The results of the analysis demonstrate that there are systematic differences between the ways that male and female candidates communicate with voters, but that these differences are typically not sizeable. In other words, gender seems to matter in campaign communications strategies but not always for very much. Where we do observe differences, however, the findings show that they tend to reinforce gender-based stereotypes more so than work to counteract them. Thus, these differences may be partly accountable for the electoral results we observe.

Online Fund-Raising and Contributors in the 2004 Presidential Campaign

Online fund-raising for political campaigns has grown substantially in recent election cycles, raising new and important questions about how this phenomenon is affecting the composition of the donor pool. In this article, the authors use data from a survey of donors in the 2004 presidential election to compare the demographic, socioeconomic, and political characteristics of online and offline donors. The authors find mostly similarities between the two donor pools, although online donors tend to be younger and more politically active. The results also show that candidates on the left were more successful at motivating online contributions in 2004.

Filled Coffers: Campaign Contributions and Contributors in the 2008 Elections

The presidential candidates alone in 2008 raised a stunning