The dynamics of candidate evaluations and vote choice in 2008: looking to the past or future?

In this paper, we leverage a 10-wave election panel to examine the relative and dynamic effects of voter evaluations of Bush, Palin, Biden, McCain, and Obama in the 2008 presidential election. We show that the effects of these political figures on vote choice evolves through the campaign, with the predictive effects of President Bush declining after the nominees are known, and the effects of the candidates (and Palin), increasing towards Election Day. In evaluating the relative effects of these political figures on individual-level changes in vote choice during the fall campaign, we also find that evaluations of the candidates and Sarah Palin dwarf that of President Bush. Our results suggest a Bayesian model of voter decision making in which retrospective evaluations of the previous administration might provide a starting point for assessing the candidates, but prospective evaluations based on information learned during the campaign helps voters to update their candidate preference. Finally, we estimate the “Palin effect,” based on individual-level changes in favorability towards the vice-presidential nominee, and conclude that her campaign performance cost McCain just under 2% of the final vote share.     

Multi-dimensional economic voting in Spain: The 2008 election

Economic voting studies remain contentious in Spain. The notion is widely-held that there is no economic vote in that country, due to the pervasive and effacing influences of left-right ideology. Still, a growing number of investigations show a significant impact of economic evaluation on the vote choice in Spanish national elections. At least one possible exception here is the 2008 election, where the question has received no systematic treatment. In this study, we explore the impact of economic voting in that contest. We find, first, the presence of strong economic voting of the valence kind. Second, we find that two hitherto unstudied dimensions of economic voting – position and patrimony – have their own independent effect.     

Who Votes for the Future? Information,Expectations, and Endogeneity in Economic Voting

Voters’ four primary evaluations of the economy—retrospective national, retrospective pocketbook, prospective national, and prospective pocketbook—vary in the cognitive steps necessary to link economic outcomes to candidates in elections. We hypothesize that the effects of the different economic evaluations on vote choice vary with a voter’s ability to acquire information and anticipate the election outcome. Using data from the 1980 through 2004 US presidential elections, we estimate a model of vote choice that includes all four economic evaluations as well as information and uncertainty moderators. The effects of retrospective evaluations on vote choice do not vary by voter information. Prospective economic evaluations weigh in the decisions of the most informed voters, who rely on prospective national evaluations when they believe the incumbent party will win and on prospective pocketbook evaluations when they are uncertain about the election outcome or believe that the challenger will win. Voters who have accurate expectations about who will win the election show the strongest relationship between their vote choice and sociotropic evaluations of the economy, both retrospective and prospective. Voters whose economic evaluations are most likely to be endogenous to vote choice show a weaker relationship between economic evaluations and their votes than the voters who appear to be more objective in their assessments of the election. Economic voting is broader and more prospective than previously accepted, and concerns about endogeneity in economic evaluations are overstated.     

Cross-national election surveys: A French pre-test

In common with scholars in other leading democracies, election researchers of France and the United States rely heavily on a survey research methodology; but their respective national election surveys do not pose many of the same questions, and the dominant research paradigms in each country offer opposing explanatory models of vote choice. Herein are reported preliminary results from a joint effort of US and French researchers, which seeks to include numerous cross-national items in the French National Election Study (for 1995). The following American National Election Study (ANES)-type items receive attention: candidate feeling thermometers, job approval ratings, economic evaluations, seven-point proximity measures on social issues and party identification. Inclusion of these measures in French surveys may allow an important cross-nation extension of voting models thought to be peculiar to one political culture, such as the US.     

Endogenous economic voting: evidence from the 1997 British election

Using panel surveys conducted in Great Britain before and after the 1997 general election, we examine the relationship between voting behavior and post-election economic perceptions. Drawing on psychological theories of attitude formation, we argue that those who voted for Labour and the Liberal Democrats perceived the past state of the British economy under the Tory government more negatively than they had prior to casting their ballot in the 1997 election. Similarly, we posit that Labour supporters would view the future state of the national economy under Labour more positively than they had before the election. This indicates that, contrary to many assumptions in the economic voting literature, voting behavior influences evaluations of the economy as voters seek to reduce inconsistencies between their vote choice and evaluations of the economy by bringing their attitudes in line with the vote they cast in the election. It also means that voters’ post-election economic perceptions are, at least in part, influenced by and thus endogenous to their vote choice. This finding has two major implications: first, cross-sectional models of economic voting are likely to overestimate the effect of economic perceptions on the vote. Second, the endogeneity of economic perceptions may compromise the quality of economic voting as a mechanism for democratic accountability.     

Individual level dynamics of PTV change across the electoral cycle

Propensity-to-vote (PTV) scores are ever more commonly used in electoral research as a measure of electoral utilities. Yet a growing literature employs them as dependent variable in the voting equation in place of the lower information granted by vote recall questions. However, this choice can be seen as problematic because of the very structure of election survey research. To the extent that voters' PTVs are measured in post-election surveys (as it is often the case) these are likely to result endogenously produced by actual voting behavior in the past election – thus partly undermining the validity of the PTV question which, ideally, should not be related to any specific election. In this paper, we try to disentangle the relationship between short-term political attitudes (leader evaluations, issue proximity, economic assessments) and voters' changing patterns of propensities to vote in both an electoral and a non-electoral context. The latter scenario serves as a means to rule out the potentially contaminating effect of voting choices on voters' PTVs. The data comes from two panel surveys of Italian voters conducted by ITANES in occasion of the 2006 general election, and in 2011 (that is, in a non-electoral year) respectively.     

When do voters actually think “It’s the Economy”? Evidence from the 2008 presidential campaign

Studies linking election outcomes to economics frequently assume that the economy’s salience is constant. This study shows that the economy’s salience systematically fluctuates. The number of voters focused on economic issues shifted dramatically throughout the 2008 campaign as the recession worsened and this change occurred well before the financial markets collapsed in September 2008. However, even during the recession substantial numbers of individuals said their vote was based on non-economic issues and for these individuals there was no relationship between their assessment of the economy and their electoral choice. Consistent with extant theories of issue attention, citizens who were the hardest hit by the recession and those who had the most anxiety about suffering a financial dislocation in the future were most likely to consider economic performance electorally important while secure voters were less likely to be economic voters.     

How are we doing? Group-based economic assessments and African American political behavior

Using data from the National Black Election Study, this study tests the importance of group-based economic evaluations in driving African American political behavior.¹ Group-based evaluations powerfully influence presidential approval and vote choice, even controlling for national and personal evaluations and a conception of “linked fate.” More importantly, group-based assessments exert a significant and independent influence on turnout, the central variable in black electoral politics. The results extend and reconsider the implications of group solidarity as a motivator of black political behavior and suggest that a revision of traditional notions of economic voting is in order, at least for African Americans.     

Validation of voter recall: Time of electoral decision making

Accuracy of respondent recall has long been a concern in political science research. Earlier analyses of voter behavior discovered errors which included 10 to 25 percent of the sample. The present work examines an important attitudinal question which appears in each national election study: the time at which the respondent recalls making a final presidential vote choice. Data from the four-wave 1980 National Election Panel Study are used to validate the recall variable for that election campaign. A new variable — candidate preference patterns — is created which reflects consistency in individual voter preference. Only forty percent of the sample reflect consistent responses on the two measures. Furthermore, partisan strength and political involvement are found to be positively related to inconsistent behavior. Cognitive dissonance and the bandwagon effect are offered as explanations for these results.     

US voter registration reform

Voter registration in the United States changed after the 2000 election with a requirement that states adopt statewide voter registries. However, these registries vary in design in practice, with some states having state managed “top–down” registries and other states having more decentralized “bottom–up” registries. I compare the effect of moving to a top–down registry with the adoption of Election Day registration – where voters can register to vote the day of the election – on voters saying that they are not registered because of election management problems or not voting because of a voter registration issue. EDR had a pronounced effect on reducing voter registration problems but the adoption of new voter registries had minimal effect on the same problems.     

‘What do we have to lose?’: Local economic decline,prospect theory,and support for Brexit

The Brexit referendum confronted British voters with a choice that could have profound consequences for the British economy in a context of high uncertainty. Drawing on important lessons from prospect theory, I argue that citizens who were in the domain of economic losses were more likely to take a risk and vote in favor of Brexit. On the contrary, I hold that citizens who were in the domain of economic gains tended to be more risk averse and were more likely to support ‘Remain’ in the referendum. Using data from several waves of the British Election Study 2014–2019 Internet Panel, I find strong support for these theoretical expectations. British voters who lived in declining areas were significantly more likely to think that leaving the EU would lead to improvements in the national economy. These prospective economic evaluations (captured about a month prior to the referendum) in turn are related to the ‘Leave’ vote in the Brexit referendum.     

Is there a relationship between election outcomes and perceptions of personal economic well-being? A test using post-election economic expectations

Do individuals believe that an election victory by their favored candidate will improve their personal economic well-being? Previous work has either adopted an approach that is not well suited to determining this relationship, or ignored this question to focus on perceptions of macroeconomic conditions. In this paper we adopt a new approach that allows us to determine the relationship individuals perceive between elections and personal economic welfare, examining the relationship between vote choice, the election outcome, and post-election expectations for personal economic well-being. We find that economic individualism plays an important role in shaping the relationship individuals perceive between election outcomes and their personal economic well-being. Individuals who reject economic individualism do perceive a relationship, with those viewing an election outcome as favorable more optimistic in their expectations for personal economic well-being than those who view the election outcome as unfavorable. Conversely, election outcomes do not influence the expectations of economic individualists.     

The electoral consequences of anti-Muslim prejudice

A growing body of research has documented the development of pervasive anti-Muslim sentiment among White Americans. We build on this research to demonstrate that anti-Muslim attitudes and negative stereotypes of Muslim people have become an enduring and consistent component of White Americans' presidential vote choice beyond any one specific candidate or election. We argue that the racialization of Muslim Americas has increased their salience and significance in both the minds of White Americans and in national political discourse, making attitudes toward Muslims a consistent predictor of Whites’ presidential candidate evaluations in every election since at least 2004. We support this account with empirical evidence from the 2004–2020 American National Election Studies, using measures of group affect and negative stereotypes of Muslim people.     

Confidence in an election authority and satisfaction with democracy: Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment of a failed election in Sweden

Contemporary research on electoral integrity has focused on the functioning, evaluation, and legitimacy of electoral processes in emerging democracies. By contrast, this study investigates whether a failed election in a well-established democracy can affect individuals' evaluations of the electoral management body, the Election Authority, and whether those evaluations affect satisfaction with democracy. Using the case of a Swedish regional election in 2010 that had to be rerun due to procedural mistakes in the vote handling, we found that, in the short term, individuals’ confidence in the Election Authority was reduced after it was announced that the election had to be rerun because of the mistakes. Subsequently, this decreased confidence was strongly associated with less satisfaction with democracy at the regional and national level. As good news for the authority, after a successful rerun election, confidence rebounded to the levels prior to the failed election.     

Revitalizing the United States‐Japanese alliance

Abstract

While the notion that subjective economic perceptions as well as objective economic conditions affect electoral outcomes has long been explored in advanced democracies and new democracies, evidence of the link between the economy and elections has been rarely found in East Asian countries. As economic issues have become salient since the 1997 financial crisis, political leaders’ capacity to manage the economy has become one of the most important criteria in electoral choice in East Asia. This paper examines how economic issues influenced the results of the 2007 presidential election in South Korea. By making use of the 2007 Presidential Election Panel Study, this study examines the continuity of and changes in the Korean voters’ electoral behavior. This study describes the political situation in the post-1997 financial crisis period under two liberal governments in Korea and introduces the processes and characteristics of electoral campaigns in the 2007 presidential election. This paper then explores the link between the economy and vote choice, focusing on whether economic issues were salient among the electorate, whether retrospective or prospective economic voting was prevalent among Koreans, and how the voters supported Lee Myung Bak across age groups, regions, and parties in the 2007 presidential election.     

Do White In-group Processes Matter,Too? White Racial Identity and Support for Black Political Candidates

Scholars find that negative evaluations of Blacks lead Whites to vote against Black political candidates. However, can an in-group psychological process have the same effect? We consider White racial identity to be a strong candidate for such a process. We argue that the mere presence of a Black candidate cues the identity, reducing support for these candidates among Whites. We test this hypothesis on vote choice in seven instances. Five of them involve simple vote choice models: the 2008 and 2012 Presidential elections, and three elections in 2010: The Massachusetts Gubernatorial election, Black candidates for the US House, and Black candidates for the US Senate. The other two are tests of the notion that White racial identity reduced President Obama’s approval, thus reducing support for all Democratic Congressional candidates in the 2010 Midterm and 2012 Congressional elections. We find support for these notions in all seven cases, across these seven elections, using four different survey research datasets, and four different measures of White identity. Comparisons with other presidential elections show that White identity did not significantly affect mono-racial elections. Furthermore, we find the White identity and racial resentment results to be very similar in terms of their robustness and apparent effect sizes. This indicates in-group evaluations, and those that focus on out-groups, operate independently of one another.     

Issue Ownership of the Economy: Cross-Time Effects on Vote Choice

Issue ownership has become a useful concept for explaining party and voter behaviour in electoral democracies. This article argues that issue ownership can also provide us with a better understanding of the economic issue’s impact on the vote because perceptions of party competence at managing the economy can counterbalance the influence of retrospective economic evaluations, by encouraging voters to put economic performance (good or bad) into perspective. These general expectations are tested with the use of individual-level survey data from five Canadian Election Studies conducted between 1984 and 2011. That relatively long period of time allows estimation of the impact on incumbent vote choice of competence perceptions and economic assessments during both good and bad economic times. Consequently, the article shows that issue ownership of the economy matters to vote choice, that its influence has been consistent across elections, and that it outweighs the impact of retrospective economic judgements.     

Economic performance and presidential trait evaluations: A longitudinal analysis

Presidential traits (i.e. morality, intelligence, leadership) have generally been assumed to be idiosyncratic personal characteristics of the individual and are treated as exogenous from other political and economic factors. Prior literature has shown that presidential characteristics and economic performance are important elements of vote choice and approval. Using ANES data from 1984 to 2008, we demonstrate an important link between these factors, showing that objective and subjective indicators of economic performance are significant predictors of trait evaluations. Specifically, evaluations of the incumbent president at election time are directly related to changes in economic performance earlier in the year. The effects of economic performance are not isolated to retrospective policy evaluations, but also influence the overall evaluation of the president as a person.     

Predicting the Labour Vote in 1983: Social Backgrounds versus Subjective Evaluations

Labour's electoral performance in the 1983 General Election is examined in the light of a theoretical model of voting behaviour, originally developed to explain the 1979 election. In this model, voting behaviour is seen as a product of the individual's social attributes and his or her subjective evaluations of the Labour Party. The evidence indicates that subjective evaluations, particularly affective and retrospective evaluations, were far more important than social attributes in predicting the Labour vote in 1983. Moreover the latter were only weakly related to the former, which suggests that purely sociological accounts of electoral choice are becoming increasingly obsolescent in explaining and predicting electoral behaviour in Britain.     

Male and Female Party Images in Sweden

This article is based on the 1991 Swedish Election Study and sets out to analyse gender differences in voting behaviour. To increase our understanding of the dynamics between the parties and women and men in the Swedish electorate, an analysis of gender-based "party images" is undertaken. Party images refer to policy orientations and the analysis thereof is empirically based on three sets of open-ended questions about the most dent issuer in the election. The main purpose is to investigate to what extent women and men who vote for the same party in an election. in their mind. have differing images of the party they cast their vote for. With large differences in party images it can be put into question if women and men vote for the "same" parties even if the party label is the same on the ballots they choose on election day. The results show that for the Social Democratic Party and the Conservative Party there was to a large extent an agreement between the male and female voters in their party images in the 1991 Swedish Election. This was also true for the Christian Democratic Party. Among women and men who voted for the other five parties analysed in the article, a larger degree of gender-based disagreements in the party images was found.