6/30/2019

Electoral Strategy and Campaign

Behavior
“A national political campaign is better than the
best circus ever heard of, with a mass baptism
and a couple of hangings thrown in.”

-H. L. Mencken

First Thing’s First

It’s crucial to understand the fundamentals of
the electoral system in which we’re working.
All strategy comes from rules.

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Remember: Always Two, There

Are…

Because Duverger’s Law

Plurality v. Proportional
Representation

Vote %
Candidate A 40
Candidate B 30
Candidate C 20
Candidate D 10

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Plurality v. Proportional
Representation

Seats Won (25 total)

Vote % Plurality PR
Candidate A 40
Candidate B 30
Candidate C 20
Candidate D 10

Plurality v. Proportional
Representation

Seats Won (25 total)

Vote % Plurality PR
Candidate A 40 25
Candidate B 30 0
Candidate C 20 0
Candidate D 10 0

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Plurality v. Proportional
Representation

Seats Won (25 total)

Vote % Plurality PR
Candidate A 40 25 11
Candidate B 30 0 8
Candidate C 20 0 6
Candidate D 10 0 0

Plurality v. Proportional
Representation

Delegates Won (25 total)

Vote % Plurality PR
Candidate A 40 25 11
Candidate B 30 0 8
Candidate C 20 0 6
Candidate D 10 0 0

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Psychology of the Wasted Vote

Imagine a Libertarian in America…

Psychology of the Wasted Vote

The natural preference might be for Gary
Johnson…

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Psychology of the Wasted Vote

But let’s face it. He’s not going to win. Because
Duverger’s Law.

@$%*!

Psychology of the Wasted Vote

Why vote for a loser? Better to have some
influence…

Hmm…

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Psychology of the Wasted Vote

Of the remaining candidates, Bush is closer to
the voter’s preference…

Psychology of the Wasted Vote

There is some overlap…and so the voter can
stomach going this way.

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Psychology of the Wasted Vote

There is some overlap…and so the voter can
stomach going this way.

Median Voter: Hotelling’s Law

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Median Voter: Hotelling’s Law

Median Voter: Hotelling’s Law

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Median Voter: Hotelling’s Law

Median Voter: Hotelling’s Law

In an election
though, the
candidates would
send out vendors.
Because sure you
have to convince
folks, but you also
have to mobilize
them.

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Median Voter: Hotelling’s Law

The candidate with the best delivery system
should win. Because Duverger’s Law.

Median Voter: Hotelling’s Law

This implies two strategic elements:
1. Don’t be crazy in your messaging.
2. Mobilize!

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Campaigning Ain’t Easy

“Persuade and
Mobilize.”
Easy right?
The problem is
that this takes a
lot of money
and humans.

Remember: One MILLION Dollars!

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What’s It For?

What’s It For?

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Advertising in Campaigns
Ads are certainly intended to inform voters
about candidates: Their background, their policy
positions, etc.
Ads may not mobilize on their own, but they can
help voters form preferences about candidates,
and they can shape how salient the election
seems.

Ad Effectiveness
Effective ads stimulate
emotions in voters. Brader
(2005) found that:
1. Enthusiasm can aid
participation and
loyalty.
2. Fear motivates vigilance
and can be persuasive.

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Basic Incumbent Strategy

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you,
then they fight you, then you win.”
-Misattributed quote

Basic Incumbent Strategy

1.Ignore
2.Ridicule
3.Attack

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Basic Incumbent Strategy

1.Ignore One reason we see so

many attack ads is that
incumbents realize too
2.Ridicule late that they need to
go in this direction.

3.Attack

Attack!
Voters say they
hate attack ads,
but we see an
awful lot of them.
Why?

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Attack!
Voters say they
hate attack ads,
but we see an
awful lot of them.
Why?
“Because they
work.” That’s a
thing media
consultants say.

All About Attack Ads

Geer (2006) argues that
attack ads are more likely to
focus on issues that voters
care about (as opposed to
trivial biographical
information), and are much
more informative than
“positive” ads.

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Do Attack Ads Demobilize?

There is a camp that believes that exposure to
negative campaigns depresses turnout. Most
notably, Ansolabehere et al. (1994) found that
watching negative commericals leads to
increased cynicism and a 5% drop in intent to
vote.
This paper was a big deal back in the day, and
support for this finding remains in the field.

But is it right?
Probably not. Thinking about the state of the
literature as a whole, and not just any single
study, the findings suggest:
1. Negative ads are no more “effective” than
positive ones.
2. Negative ads do not appear to either increase
or decrease turnout.

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Good Ad Campaigns: Theme and

Difference
Gerber, Green, Gimpel, and
Shaw (2011) found short-
lived effects of TV ads on
vote preference.
The best campaigns are
therefore packaged around
a theme or brand that draws
a distinction between the
candidates.

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Common Challenger Brands

• Outsider Campaign:
– Everyman
– The Change Agent
– The Angry American
– The Common Sense Candidate
– The Optimist
– The Quirky Choice
• Insider Campaign

Do Campaigns Matter?

Think: All the Money,

All the Ads, All the
Events and Goings-
On.
It HAS to matter…right?

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Do Campaigns Matter?

Think: All the Money,

All the Ads, All the
Events and Goings-
On.
It HAS to matter…right?
Yes! Some of the time.

Start With Ads: What Is Known?

• Ads do appear to be reasonably effective at
persuasion, but the effects are ephemeral.
• Most studies find that they “wear off” in as
little as 1-2 days, or at most 1-2 weeks.

• But if ads don’t matter, what does?

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Candidate Profiles

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So we have a bit of a thinker:

How is it that challengers’

campaigning helps
them, and incumbents’
campaign hurts them?

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Campaigns CAN Move Opinion

• If challenger
spending works,
then money must
be doing
something.
• Questions: How can
campaigns get the
most for their
money?

Improving Efficiency
Given these data, if you
Obama McCain Other/NA had a voter standing in
White Men front of you in 2008, and
had to guess who she
White Women supported, your best bet
Black Men would be Obama—
Black Women always.

Latino Men But if you have more

Latino Women information, you can
make better guesses.
All Other Races
Totals 640 553 19
2008 National Exits. N=1200

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Improving Efficiency
Having more information
clearly allows us to refine
our predictions, and
make fewer errors.
Obama McCain Other/NA
White Men 41.0% 56.9% 2.1% For instance, rather than
predict support for
White Women 45.9% 53.0% 1.1% Obama all the time, we
Black Men 95.0% 5.0% 0.0% can see that white voters
will probably go for
Black Women 95.3% 3.5% 1.2% McCain—regardless of
gender.
Latino Men 64.6% 33.3% 2.1%
Latino Women 68.3% 30.0% 1.7% We’re still going to make
mistakes….we’ll just
All Other Races 64.4% 32.2% 3.4% make fewer.
Totals 640 553 19
2008 National Exits. N=1200 The more data we have,
the fewer mistakes we’ll
make.

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Name Registered Voter

Smith R Y

Jackson D N

Mulch R Y

Johnson D Y

Jones I Y

Adams N/A N

Kinsey I N

Who should Democrats target in

this election?

Name Registered Voter HHI

Smith R Y 225,000

Jackson D N 49,000

Mulch R Y 84,000

Johnson D Y 53,000

Jones I Y 149,000

Adams N/A N 59,000

Kinsey I N 95,000

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Name Registered Voter HHI Race

Smith R Y 225,000 White

Jackson D N 49,000 White

Mulch R Y 84,000 White

Johnson D Y 53,000 Black

Jones I Y 149,000 Black

Adams N/A N 59,000 White

Kinsey I N 95,000 White

Name Registered Voter HHI Race Gun Owner

Smith R Y 225,000 White Y

Jackson D N 49,000 White Y

Mulch R Y 84,000 White Y

Johnson D Y 53,000 Black N

Jones I Y 149,000 Black N

Adams N/A N 59,000 White Y

Kinsey I N 95,000 White Y

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Name Registered Voter HHI Race Gun Owner Rent/Own

Smith R Y 225,000 White Y Own

Jackson D N 49,000 White Y Rent

Mulch R Y 84,000 White Y Own

Johnson D Y 53,000 Black N Rent

Jones I Y 149,000 Black N Own

Adams N/A N 59,000 White Y Rent

Kinsey I N 95,000 White Y Own

Name Registered Voter HHI Race Gun Owner Rent/Own

Smith R Y 225,000 White Y Own

Jackson D N 49,000 White Y Rent

Mulch R Y 84,000 White Y Own

Johnson D Y 53,000 Black N Rent

Jones I Y 149,000 Black N Own

Adams N/A N 59,000 White Y Rent

Kinsey I N 95,000 White Y Own

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Name Registered Voter HHI Race Gun Owner Rent/Own

Smith R Y 225,000 White Y Own

Jackson D N 49,000 White Y Rent

Mulch R Y 84,000 White Y Own

Johnson D Y 53,000 Black N Rent

Jones I Y 149,000 Black N Own

Adams N/A N 59,000 White Y Rent

Kinsey I N 95,000 White Y Own

Democrats probably won’t get Kinsey, Smith, or

Mulch in this election. They’ll probably get
Johnson without doing much. So, they should
focus on Jackson, Jones, and Adams.

Name Registered Voter HHI Race Gun Owner Rent/Own

Smith R Y 225,000 White Y Own

Jackson D N 49,000 White Y Rent

Mulch R Y 84,000 White Y Own

Johnson D Y 53,000 Black N Rent

Jones I Y 149,000 Black N Own

Adams N/A N 59,000 White Y Rent

Kinsey I N 95,000 White Y Own

As they learn about these voters, they can

add information to the file about the issues
they care about, thereby increasing the
odds of a high-quality interaction.

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But, targeting
does not occur in
a vacuum.

The Bigger Picture: Do Candidates

Truly Control Their Own Destiny?

In circumstances
where the stakes
are clear and the
candidates are
well-known to all,
the answer is:

Much less than

you probably
think.

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Beginning Where We Will End: Some

Theories On Who Wins Elections
Responsible party government —Voters hold
parties accountable for the way they run the
government.
Variants: Economic voting, Retrospective Voting
Electoral competition — Parties compete for votes
by taking the most popular positions that they
can….ideally by converging on the preference of
the median voter.
Remember the ice cream on the beach?

The Median Voter

Recall the advantage of
positioning near the
middle.
But this model
assumes that
preferences are
single-peaked, and
that everyone votes.

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The Median Voter

That is why mobilization (the vendors in our
model) is so important. You don’t actually
have to come to the middle of the electorate if
you can out-mobilize the opponent.

The Median Voter

So could it be that elections are
more a matter of voter
identification and activation,
than selling people on what
one will do if elected?
If so, we might reasonably
assume that campaigns are
not changing the minds of
the great middle…and the
“horserace” is not very
important.

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Electoral Context
How many “game
changers” were there
during the 2012
presidential election?
Not Many.
Electioneering mattered
some in the GOP primary,
but not much in the
general.

The “Fundamentals”
• The Economy (trends are
more important than levels)
• Presidential Approval
• Incumbency
• Congressional elections:
“swing districts”

If we know this stuff, we can

predict elections fairly
accurately, and fairly
early…most of the time.

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Stuff We Know
Most voters decide early on in the election
cycle, and don’t change their mind as the
events of the campaign unfold (Zaller 1994).
If we have information about incumbency and
income growth, and only that information, we
can predict roughly 85% of the variation in
presidential election outcomes (Wlezien
2013).

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2004

So Campaigns Don’t Matter?

I didn’t say that. “Either-
Or” comparisons are
not helpful here.
Campaigns exist within
the political-economic
environment. They
point people to the
fundamentals via
agenda-setting,
framing, etc.

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So Campaigns Matter?
I didn’t say that either.
Campaigns certainly
don’t matter in the
way the media wants
them to.
The truth on this
question is
somewhere in the
middle.

Campaign Effects in a Picture

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