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Sep 21 • 4 tweets • 5 min read
When Information About Candidates Persuades Voters

New @NiskanenCenter #ScienceOfPolitics podcast/transcript with @j_kalla & @cantstopkevin

Voters still change their partisan vote choice in response to information & do take signals of candidate quality

niskanencenter.org/when-informati…
@NiskanenCenter @j_kalla @cantstopkevin Testing 100s of messages on 1000s of voters in the 2020 presidential election, voters can be persuaded, especially with specific information about Biden:
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…
Even Republicans change their vote choice, suggesting that campaign information can shift votes:
@NiskanenCenter @j_kalla @cantstopkevin & more high quality candidates, like those endorsed by newspapers, are still winning at high rates & getting more votes; it's just been obscured by mostly uncompetitive elections:
preprints.apsanet.org/engage/apsa/ar…
@NiskanenCenter @j_kalla @cantstopkevin It's mostly a good news story about campaigns: information about candidates, their backgrounds, & their positions can persuade voters. But that does not mean most campaigns provide that information to most voters. More on the latest #scienceofpolitics:
niskanencenter.org/when-informati…

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More from @MattGrossmann

Matt Grossmann Profile picture
Sep 23
Americans increasingly perceive important differences between the parties

Fun new @electionstudies charts:
isr-anesweb.isr.umich.edu/ANES_Data_Tool… Image
Americans increasingly perceive the Republican Party as the more conservative party but some Americans remain ideologically confused
isr-anesweb.isr.umich.edu/ANES_Data_Tool… Image
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Jul 25
Nationalization made state policy respond more to party control, with legislators responding to activist donors over public opinion, parties copying electorally successful policies only in same-party states, & Rep states causing democratic backsliding

press.princeton.edu/books/hardcove…
Not all policies moved rightward in Red states & leftward in Blue states; some policies like criminal justice were unresponsive to party control. But overall red & blue states diverged, making them more consistent with opinion in their states, but not responsive to opinion change
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press.princeton.edu/books/hardcove…
Read 7 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
Jul 6
@whstancil High turnout is unrelated to partisan election outcomes:
@whstancil The current congressional majority has historically high rates of both party unity & win rates in both chambers:
@whstancil Even with larger majorities, policymaking typically requires both large bipartisan majorities & significant majority party concessions:
Read 6 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
Jul 2
If you think Democrats benefit from extreme Republican candidates (or vice versa), you should apply the same logic & evidence to the other side. If you think more extreme candidates hurt the other side but help your side, you’re just engaged in wishful thinking.
The penalty for ideological extremism is real but small & shrinking. It doesn’t apply to only one party. If you expect large candidate effects in 2022, I would downgrade them. But you should expect some & they should run in the traditional direction toward experience & moderation
Electorally equivalent effects of ideological moderation (which most evidence favors) do not require moral equivalence. Effects of extremism do also vary with levels of extremism. But the effect is in the same direction: it’s never good for 1 party & bad for other to be moderate
Read 4 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
Jan 29
Across Western democracies, the education divide slowly reversed where the educated now vote for parties of the left, even as the income divide (with rich voting for parties of the right) usually remained

From Political Cleavages & Social Inequalities:
hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…
There is no cross-national increase in the age divide. But later generations have both been more educated & more likely to divide in their voting based on education (with educated younger voting left & non-educated younger voting right)
hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…
There has also been a reversal of the gender divide in most Western countries; women used to be more likely to vote for parties of the right & are now more likely to vote for parties of the left, but there is plenty of variation

hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?is…
Read 6 tweets
Matt Grossmann Profile picture
Jan 29
Democratic partisanship increases with Republican extremism but decreases as Democrats move leftward, especially among Southern Whites. Simulations for 2020 suggest these strong negative effects of an aggressive leftward move

From Dynamic Partisanship:
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…
Their measure of left-right movement is perceptions of the party partitions on all ANES scales, which include racial & non-racial issue positions as well as ideology. At individual & aggregate levels, moving away from the perceived center loses adherents
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…
They extend the model (with tweaks for multi-partyism) to Australia, Canada, & the UK. There are also short-term shifts due to circumstances or performance & voter position changes, but changes in perceived party ideological positions drive a lot of longer-term change.
Read 4 tweets

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