Daron R. Shaw

How Large and Long-lasting Are the Persuasive Effects of Televised Campaign Ads? Results from a Randomized Field Experiment

We report the results of the first large-scale experiment involving paid political advertising. During the opening months of a 2006 gubernatorial campaign, approximately

Examining Latino Turnout in 1996: A Three-State, Validated Survey Approach

2 million of television and radio advertising on behalf of the incumbent candidate was deployed experimentally. In each experimental media market, the launch date and volume of television advertising were randomly assigned. In order to gauge movement in public opinion, a tracking poll conducted brief telephone interviews with approximately 1,000 registered voters each day and a brief follow-up one month after the conclusion of the television campaign. Results indicate that televised ads have strong but short-lived effects on voting preferences. The ephemeral nature of these effects is more consistent with psychological models of priming than with models of on-line processing.

A Study of Presidential Campaign Event Effects from 1952 to 1992

As Latino populations in the United States increase, accurately characterizing their turnout is central to understanding how the post-New Deal party system will evolve. Yet we presently have little data on either their turnout or the dynamic by which such participation occurs. We estimate Latino voting rates in the 1996 presidential election by validating selfreported turnout from a post-election survey of Latinos in California, Florida, and Texas. We then use these estimates as dependent variables for multivariate models of Latino turnout. The data show that the validated Latino turnout was much lower than the aggregate turnout for the 1996 election. In addition, many of the factors that have explained aggregate voting were also significantly correlated with Latino turnout. These correlations, however, were stronger for self-reported than for validated Latino voting. Perhaps the most distinctive feature of Latino voting in 1996 was the significant and positive effect of contacting by a Latino group, which suggests that mobilization efforts may be critical to eradicating the turnout gap and incorporating Latinos into the existing party system. ith each national election during the past twenty years has come the prediction that Latino turnout would be massive and decisive. As of 1996, despite more voters and a rapidly growing population, the promise of an overwhelming Latino turnout had not been realized. There were, however, several reasons to expect that the 1996 election would witness the long-awaited dramatic increase in Hispanic voting. First, Latino leaders and officeholders spurred the Democrats to develop a major Latino outreach effort (Subervi-Velez and Cunningham 1999). Republican Latinos, although less influential than their Democratic counterparts, promoted a similar initiative (de la Garza and DeSipio 1997). Second, Latino leaders linked the anti-immigrant elements of the 1996 Welfare Reform Act to Californias Proposition 187 (which was passed in 1994 and sought to deny social services to the children of illegal aliens) in hopes of mobilizing Latino voters nationwide. Third, in response to provisions in the new welfare reform, Latino immigrants began naturalizing at a record pace, greatly increasing the potential numbers of Latino voters (Freeman et al. 1998). Finally, motor-voter provisions and Latino registration drives helped raise the number of Latino registered voters to 6.6 million, almost 1.5 million more than 1992 (Southwest Voter Registration and Education Project 1997). The 1996 election is thus exceptionally interesting to students of Latino voting. In addition to a growing population, increased registration, and a favorable political context for Latino participation, concerted efforts to mobilize Latinos may have increased turnout. Here we examine the influence of mobilization and other political and demographic variables on turnout in 1996. Our data come from a three-state, post-election survey of Latinos. We find that validated Latino turnout was much lower than esti-

The Methods behind the Madness: Presidential Electoral College Strategies, 1988-1996

A persistent argument in political science is that presidential campaign events do not have strong effects because most people (1) are uninformed about issues and candidates, (2) tend to vote based on cues from reliable (partisan) sources about the state of the economy and condition of the country, and (3) face balanced information environments. This study argues that presidential campaign events are multifaceted and their effects are occasionally substantial. The analysis shows that certain campaign events reach voters and have significant and relatively durable effects, while other events have either negligible or transitory effects. The implication is that many previous studies have misspecified the independent variable (by lumping campaign events together), as well as the dependent variable (by considering only the immediate impact).

From the Inner Ring Out: News Congruence, Cue-Taking, and Campaign Coverage

The prevailing conventional wisdom in political science is that presidential candidates behave strategically and systematically. This study posits that we have not had adequate empirical information to judge how much strategic planning goes on, how these plans are derived, or how systematically they are realized. The analysis examines actual electoral college strategies from the 1988, 1992, and 1996 presidential elections and judges them against state-by-state allocations of television advertising purchases and candidate appearances. The data show that candidates devised and acted upon electoral college strategies, which were largely symmetrical across elections and party lines. The data also show, however, that strategies were neither perfectly symmetrical nor static, raising the possibility that presidential campaigning is less predictable than previously assumed.

Candidate Appearances in Presidential Elections, 1972-2000

Studies of the organizational and behavioral characteristics of the American news media, as well as studies of media effects, often presume a basic institutional unity among news organizations. These studies typically analyze a small set of prestige media, and then make or infer conclusions with respect to the non-prestige media or the news media in general. The intention here is to verify empirically the extent to which the non-prestige ”outer ring” media in fact take cues from the prestige ”inner ring” news organizations. Using content analyses of forty-one daily newspapers from the 1992 presidential election campaign, we find that the outer ring newspapers sometimes replicate the issue agenda of the inner ring newspapers, but that they exercise significant discretion with respect to the favorability of their coverage of the presidential candidates and specific issues.

Does Partisanship Shape Attitudes toward Science and Public Policy? The Case for Ideology and Religion

Although many recent studies have examined presidential campaigns, most have concentrated on television advertising or news media coverage as the key variables of interest. Few empirical analyses have focused on the pattern of candidate appearances, and almost none have considered changes in these patterns over time. This gap is intriguing because some places should tend to receive more attention than others, and yet we know very little about the electoral strategies that determine where and why candidates make appearances. We expect that presidential campaigns have increasingly emphasized visits to particular locales because these visits are critical for driving the agenda and shaping voter perceptions through local news media coverage. Our analysis of presidential campaign appearances at the county, media market, and state levels in general elections from 1972-2000 indicates that presidential candidate appearances are increasing both in number and in geographic scope over time. While candidate appearances are concentrated in areas with especially dense and large populations, most eligible voters live in media markets that receive at least one visit by a presidential candidate, and the percentage of eligible voters exposed to especially intense personal campaigning has been on the rise. In contrast to our expectations, our findings suggest that presidential campaign appearances have not become more narrowly focused on smaller segments of the American population.

Beyond the Battlegrounds? Electoral College Strategies in the 2008 Presidential Election

Despite the apparent partisan divide over issues such as global warming and hydraulic fracturing, little is known about what shapes citizens’ willingness to accept scientific recommendations on political issues. We examine the extent to which Democrats, Republicans, and independents are likely to defer to scientific expertise in matters of policy. Our study draws on an October 2013 U.S. national survey of 2,000 respondents. We find that partisan differences exist: our data show that most Americans see science as relevant to policy, but that their willingness to defer to science in policy matters varies considerably across issues. While party, ideology, and religious beliefs clearly influence attitudes toward science, Republicans are not notably skeptical about accepting scientific recommendations. Rather, it seems that Democrats are particularly receptive to the advice and counsel of scientists, when compared to both independents and Republicans.

The tea party movement and the geography of collective action

A great deal of popular commentary during the 2008 presidential election focused on the expansiveness of Barack Obamas campaign. He seemed to be not simply competing in the battleground states that defined the Bush elections but also aggressively contesting traditional Republican strongholds. We examine the particulars of both the Obama and McCain strategies for amassing Electoral College majorities, comparing them with those of other recent campaigns. We also estimate the extent to which the campaigns allocated their resources—television advertising dollars and visits from the candidates—in accord with these plans. Contrary to our initial expectation, the data suggest that Obama pursued a “mixed” strategy, one not all that different from the strategy adopted by Ronald Reagan in 1980 and 1984. In addition, there is overwhelming evidence that both Obama and McCain were careful to allocate resources in those states deemed most important to winning in the Electoral College.

Do Robotic Calls From Credible Sources Influence Voter Turnout or Vote Choice? Evidence From a Randomized Field Experiment

We examine the geography of the Tea Party movement by drawing upon a unique data source that harvested thousands of events from the Meetup.org and Tea Party Patriots websites during the latter half of 2010. The spatial distribution of events strongly suggests that Tea Party activism was borne out of economic grievance, as it corresponds quite closely to the incidence of home foreclosures. The findings more generally reinforce the impression that Tea Party activists varied in the extent of their broader political vision and strategic acumen. On the one hand, many gathered together to express dissent and make their opposition identity known wherever they happened to live. But some did unite with like-minded groups to direct their activity toward defeating incumbents, capturing open seats, and electing their own candidates, possibly altering the outcome in a number of elections, primary and general. A geographic perspective on movement activism reveals that while not remarkably strategic with respect to the 2010 elections, Tea Party protest was not purely expressive either.