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We examine the impact of the ten-year redistricting cycle on strategic candidate behavior. First, we provide evidence that strategic candidate behavior is a function of an election's temporal proximity to a redistricting year, finding that quality challengers are less likely to emerge as the redistricting cycle progresses. Next, we show that strategic candidates interpret national and local political conditions through the lens of time. Specifically, national political conditions greatly encourage quality challengers early in the redistricting cycle but play a much reduced role later. In addition, incumbents who demonstrate moderate electoral vulnerability in the prior election are more likely to face quality challengers toward the beginning of the redistricting cycle than the end.

The assertion that public appeals by presidents can create electoral threats to noncompliant members of Congress is central to arguments about the value of 'going public' as a legislative strategy. Although recent scholarship suggests a link between popular presidential rhetoric and the likelihood of bill passage, researchers have yet to examine the impact of public presidential appeals on individual legislators. This study examines the logic of electoral threats imposed by going public. We test whether a president's going public with increased intensity leads individual members of Congress to increase their support for presidential preferences on congressional floor votes. We employ several measures to assess the intensity of presidents' public appeals, including domestic speeches, nationally televised addresses, and speeches in legislators' home states. Several logistic regression models are tested to determine whether congressional support for presidential preferences on the floor is influenced by the interaction between members' electoral vulnerability and presidents' use of popular appeals. The findings suggest that presidential speechmaking has very little impact on the likelihood that members of Congress will support the president's position on roll call votes. We argue that this suggests a necessary revision of criticisms of the 'rhetorical presidency.' Public presidential appeals do not seem to present a considerable threat to a constitutional order that is predicated on congressional autonomy and deliberation.

Byline: Frank H. Page Jr (1), Myrna H. Wooders (2) Keywords: Farsighted stability; political common agency games Abstract: We formalize the interplay between expected voting behavior and strategic positioning behavior of candidates as a common agency problem in which the candidates (i.e., the principals) compete for voters (i.e., agents) via the issues they choose and the positions they take. A political situation is defined as a feasible combination of candidate positions and expected political payoffs to the candidates. Taking this approach, we are led naturally to a particular formalization of the candidates' positioning game, called a political situation game. Within the context of this game, we define the notion of farsighted stability (introduced in an abstract setting by Chwe 1994) and apply Chwe's result to obtain existence of farsightedly stable outcomes. We compute the farsightedly stable sets for several examples of political situations games, with outcomes that conform to real-world observations. Author Affiliation: (1) Department of Finance, University of Alabama, AL 35487, Tuscaloosa, USA (2) Department of Economics, University of Warwick, CV4 7AL, Coventry, UK Article note: Received: 18 May 2001, Accepted: 22 January 2002, JEL Classification: Myrna H. Wooders: http://www.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/Economics/wooders/ An earlier version of this paper was completed while the first author was visiting the Department of Economics, University of Exeter. The first author gratefully acknowledges Exeter's support and hospitality. Similarly, the second author gratefully acknowledges the support and hospitality of the Centre for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE) of the University of Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium and of the University of Cergy-Pontoise, France. Both authors are indebted to Amrita Dhillon, John Duggan and Gilat Levy for helpful comments about references. Both authors thank an anonymous referee for helpful comments.

The functional theory of political campaign discourse (Benoit, 1999) posits that political messages can discuss two topics: policy and character. This essay extends our understanding of presidential candidate character (personality traits) by using grounded theory to develop a typology of four dimensions of personal qualities discussed in political campaign discourse (sincerity, morality, empathy, and drive) and then using computer content analysis to apply that typology to the texts of primary and general presidential spots (1952-2000) to determine the relative frequency of these character traits. Four general dimensions of character emerged: morality, drive, sincerity, and empathy (listed in descending frequency). Empathy was discussed more and morality less in the primary than the general campaign. Republicans stressed sincerity whereas Democrats emphasized empathy. Winners focused on drive and losers more often discussed empathy and morality. This study advances the theoretical understanding of the discussion of candidates' personal qualities in presidential campaigns.

The character of elections critically affects the dialogue of democracy. This article examines that dialogue in 143 U.S. Senate elections, 1988-1998, in which an incumbent sought reelection. We go beyond previous research on the impact of campaign spending to focus on the character of the contest itself, particularly the impact of negative campaigning. Campaign strategies are endogenous to the campaign itself, requiring plausible instruments and two-stage statistical techniques to produce reliable estimates. Our analyses combine information on the relative 'tone' of U.S. Senate campaigns with an original aggregate data set and ANES survey data. We ask a simple question: how effective is negative campaigning in helping to get candidates elected? Our results provide no straightforward answer. Generally speaking, but dependent on the opponent's strategy, negative campaigning is relatively effective for challengers, while positive campaigning is more effective for incumbents. Overall, our results do provide clear evidence that the campaign 'matters.'

Candidate attrition is a central dynamic element of the post-reform presidential nomination process. Candidates withdraw from the contest as their resources dwindle or as they fall significantly behind the front runner in voter support. This article tests six measures of delegate strength to judge at what stage in the campaign the front runner's lead is sufficient to conclude that the nomination race is over. Since 1988, candidates in both parties have quickly left the race once the front runner has established such a lead.

The study concludes that the use of online tools by political campaigns in the U.S. provide crucial information about candidates. The study argues that Web sites are more useful than traditional tolls because they allow interaction with candidates.

Female candidates are sometimes perceived as less competent than their male counterparts, especially in races for higher political offices, and research has indicated that female candidates can face tougher standards in establishing credibility. This study explores the effects of message theme and explicitness on the perceived competence ratings of female and male Congressional candidates. An experiment with 209 college students at the University of Florida was conducted in 1997 to investigate the relationship between candidate gender, message characteristics, and perceived competence of two hypothetical candidates, one female and one male. It was hypothesized that an explicit message on a stereotypically male policy area, crime, would be advantageous to female candidates. Message theme was found to be important for both the female and male candidates, but message explicitness was found to be important for the female candidate only. KEY CONCEPTS political communication, female candidates, gender stereotyping, message explicitness

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.

Much research demonstrates the importance of national, rather than personal, economic conditions on voting behavior, yet relatively unexplored is how citizens develop what scholars have called 'rough evaluations' of the economy. We argue that campaign news coverage about the nation's economic health provides cues to the public; in turn, these cues supply the criteria for sociotropic voting, thereby shaping presidential preferences during the course of campaigns. Examining news stories in each of the past four presidential elections, we (1) categorize coverage as economic or noneconomic, (2) measure its volume and valence, and (3) model candidate coverage against presidential preference polls. Results suggest that economic candidate coverage, although accounting for only a fraction of content, strongly and consistently predicts variation in presidential preference during all four elections, suggesting that voters gain sociotropic criteria for evaluating candidates from news media coverage of campaigns.

This paper reports the results of a randomized field experiment involving registered voters in the city of New Haven. Nonpartisan get-out-the-vote messages were delivered through personal canvassing shortly before the November 1998 election. We find that personal canvassing increased voter turnout by [approximately equal to] 6. The effect of personal contact seems to be slightly smaller for voters registered with a major political party and higher for unaffiliated voters, although the hypothesis that all voters are equally affected could not be rejected. Study of several alternative political messages provided equivocal evidence suggesting the superiority of a canvassing appeal that emphasizes the closeness of the election.

Political campaign discourse is instrumental, designed to persuade voters to perceive the candidate as preferable to the opponent. To appear preferable, candidates may acclaim (engage in self-praise) to make themselves appear better, they may attack the opposition to make opponents seem worse, or they may defend against attacks from the opposition to restore lost desirability. We analyze these three basic functions in presidential nomination acceptance addresses from 1960-1996. Nominees primarily produce acclaiming (72%) and attacking (27%). Defenses were relatively rare (1% of the discourse). Democrats acclaim more than Republicans, while Republicans attack more than Democrats. Challengers attack more than incumbents, while incumbents acclaim more than challengers. Recent nominees (1980-1996) are more likely than earlier speakers (1960-1976) to direct utterances toward the candidates instead of the parties, signaling the decline in the importance of political parties and the rise of candidate-centered politics. Nominees also discussed policy more than character in their acclaims and attacks. Key words: acceptance addresses, acclaims, attacks, defenses, political ideology, incumbents, challengers

Research findings refute the common view that the media set election agendas. Researchers examined the issues which candidates in the 1992 presidential election wanted to raise, and they looked at how public interests affected this planned agenda. Newspapers are important intermediaries in this process, but analysis of US newspapers from the time of the election indicated that the messages of all the candidates were well-represented, and that coverage was not dictated by editorial endorsements. Election agenda-setting may, instead, be a process involving transaction between all interested parties.

Negative advertising was used on the Internet in the 1996 elections for the US Senate, and can be compared with negative advertising found in other media. The Internet appears to show more positive advertising than other media, taking advertising as a whoe, but it was also used a lot by candidates who used negative advertising. Internet negative campaigning tends to be comparative but does not reach the level of engaged campaign rhetoric. The typology of advertising as comparative or oppositional can be enhanced rather than abandoned, and comparative can be viewed as superficially comparative or engagingly comparative.

This investigation examined (1) the influence of party affiliation on voter learning and perceptions of the candidates' images and issue stances, (2) the manner in which image-based cognitions interact with learning, and (3) the way image and issue perceptions are interrelated in voters' minds. Although the audience members better remembered their preferred candidate's statements, there were no significant differences in voters' tendencies toward image or issue perceptions attributable to learning or affiliation. The results of a semantic sort of the subjects' statements indicate that image and issue perceptions interact and are often integrated via judgments of candidate performance., His rhetoric is as empty as a walnut that a squirrel has condemned. Response of Audience Member to 5th District Congressional Debate, Winston-Salem, NC A focal point of the research [...]

This study compares respondents who watched the first 1936 presidential debate with respondents who did not. Those who watched the debate could more accurately recognize the issue positions of Clinton and Dole than non-watchers (although the study's design does not permit us to establish causality). Differences in the two groups' assessment of character traits of the two leading candidates were also found. Furthermore, those who identified themselves as liberals and conservatives had better issue knowledge than moderates. There were ideologically-related differences on assessment of character-traits of the two candidates as well. More respondents gave policy reasons than character reasons for voting decisions., Presidential debates have become an institutionalized part of the presidential campaign process. Since 1976, an expectation has developed that the candidates of the major parties will engage in presidential debates [...]

A study was conducted to investigate how statistical forecasting models permit the use of empirical data to enhance inferences about the probabilities of events that have never happened, such as elections. Approximate calculations were carried out to estimate average probabilities that one vote will be decisive in polls. Results showed that the probability of unlikely events can be forecast in a straightforward manner as a result of any forecasting method that includes forecasting uncertainty., 1. INTRODUCTION When an event is so rare that it has never occurred, despite many trials, estimates of its probability would seem to be a theoretical matter about which statisticians [...]

In this paper, following recent politico-institutional approaches to the theory of economic policy, we present a methodology for identifying political cycle regularities and test for electoral and partisan cycles in Canadian target variables and (monetary and fiscal) policy instruments, using annual data from 1926 to 1994. The empirical evidence suggests the absence of political cycles in Canada.

Theory: The divisive primary hypothesis asserts that the more divisive the presidential primary contest compared to that of the other party the fewer votes received in the general election. Thus the party candidate with the most divisive primary will have a more difficult general election fight. However, studies at the presidential level have failed to consider candidate quality, prior vulnerability of the incumbent president or his party, the national nature of the presidential race, and the unique context of each presidential election campaign. Once these factors are taken into account presidential primaries should have a more marginal or even nonexistent effect in understanding general election outcomes. Hypothesis: Including appropriate controls for election year context in a state-by-state model and creating a national model that controls for election year context, candidate quality, and the nature of the times should diminish the effect of nomination divisiveness on general election outcomes. Methods: Regression analysis is used to examine the effect of presidential divisive nomination campaigns on general election outcomes. Results: Once election year context in the state-by-state model in controlled for, divisiveness has a much more modest effect. This modest effect does not appear to change general election outcomes. In addition, the election year model, which posits that presidential elections are national elections and not state-by-state elections, indicated that divisiveness was not significantly different from zero.

This work analyzes voting for president to determine the impact of abortion attitudes on candidate choice in the six elections from 1972 through 1992. First, the literature is surveyed, then the relationships between party and abortion attitudes and between abortion attitudes and candidate choice are revealed. Most important is a probit analysis that includes party preference, net candidate image, incumbent popularity, gender, and abortion attitudes. The data base is the National Election Study for each year. Findings are consistent throughout the period: incumbent popularity, party preference, and net candidate image are statistically significant predictors in all elections; gender is never significant but attitudes on abortion are for 1972 and 1992. Is abortion finally becoming a realigning issue, not for political party but for women as an electoral bloc? To explore whether 1992 portends future changes in abortion politics, we focus on 1992 and isolate the 'mobilized' voters (who did not vote in 1988 but voted in 1992), and 'converted' voters (who voted one way in 1988 and another in 1992). The data show that women predominated in both subsets and, irrespective of gender, both groups held pro-choice views. A final probit analysis adding two dummy variables shows conversion, not mobilization, to be the stronger influence.

A historical comparison of the use of integrated communications in US Congressional campaigns in 1982 and 1990 revealed a dramatic rise in the use of direct mail, despite differences found between incumbents and non-incumbents. An integrated marketing communications program is recommended to candidates, specifically a mix of non-paid and paid media in their campaigns. Within the paid media mix, there should be both direct and broadcast media. This should make for a multiple, well-targeted and controlled media, which is a cornerstone of a successful campaign.

Theory: A divergent platform spatial model is used to explain whether United States House members shift their legislative voting record toward a state party position as they approach a bid for the United States Senate. Hypotheses: Any position shifting by candidates should be toward the state position and should begin well before the Senate race. There should be more movement toward the state position by winning candidates than by losing candidates and noncandidates, Methods: The average adjusted ADA score of United States Senators in the state and party is used to establish an estimate of a 'winning' position for each party. The extent of position shifting is estimated through pooled time-series cross-section regressions for candidates and through individual regressions for each candidate, winning candidate, and noncandidate. Results: House members who run for the Senate begin to shift toward the state position 13 years prior to running. Contrary to conventional wisdom, members are as likely, if not more so, to shift from the center to the left or right as they are from the extremes toward the center. Moderate Democrats move to the left. Moderate Republicans move to the right. Candidates were more likely to shift than noncandidates, and winners more than losers.

Theory: The impact of media sources including televised political commercials, television news, and newspapers on candidate issue position knowledge and issue-based candidate evaluations is explored. Hypotheses: From previous research, we expect that citizens who recall political TV commercials and are more attentive to newspaper political coverage will have greater knowledge of candidates' stances on issues than those watching political news on TV. Citizens recalling political ads and those reading the newspaper are also expected to be more likely to evaluate the candidates using substantive issues. Methods: Regression analysis of the 1992 American National Election Study data. Results: Citizens recalling political advertising have the most accurate knowledge of the candidates' issue positions and are the most likely to use domestic and foreign issues to evaluate the presidential candidates. Consumption of negative advertising is also associated with greater issue knowledge and use of issues in evaluations late in the campaign.

Theory: Recent scholarship has emphasized the potential importance of cues, information shortcuts, and statistical aggregation processes in allowing relatively uninformed citizens to act, individually or collectively, as if they were fully informed. Hypotheses: Uninformed voters successfully use cues and information shortcuts to behave as if they were fully informed. Failing that, individual deviations from fully informed voting cancel out in a mass electorate, producing the same aggregate election outcome as if voters were fully informed. Methods: Hypothetical 'fully informed' vote choices are imputed to individual voters using the observed relationship between political information and vote choices for voters with similar social and demographic characteristics, estimated by probit analysis of data from National Election Study surveys conducted after the six most recent United States presidential elections. Results: Both hypotheses are clearly disconfirmed. At the individual level, the average deviation of actual vote probabilities from hypothetical 'fully informed' vote probabilities was about ten percentage points. In the electorate as a whole, these deviations were significantly diluted by aggregation, but by no means eliminated: incumbent presidents did almost five percentage points better, and Democratic candidates did almost two percentage points better, than they would have if voters had in fact been 'fully informed.'

Objective. Public concern over a seemingly intransigent and insensitive Congress has rekindled interest in raising the rate of turnover in that body. This paper investigates two approaches, term limits and spending limits, and how campaign strategies are affected when such rules are in place. Methods. Viewing congressional campaigns as rent-seeking games, strategic responses to certain rule changes (spending and tenure ceilings) are explored theoretically. These theoretical results then guide some empirical measures using data from the 1980 elections. Results. Term limits reduce the benefits of holding office, which, in turn, reduce the effort put forth in capturing that office. This effect, however, is asymmetrical with incumbents responding more than challengers. Spending limits disproportionately affect challengers, but when long-term effects are considered the 'incumbency protection' they provide is much smaller than previously suggested. Conclusions. Term limits are expected to result in greater congressional turnover with less money being spent on campaigns than in the absence of such a rule. Spending limits can indeed be used to level the electoral playing field especially if the limits take into account the impact of incumbent spending in previous elections on the current campaign.

This study suggests that local television news directors may be considering new reporting strategies during political campaigns. The impetus appears to be a concern that citizens are getting more of their political information from the advertisements, along with a recognition that new technologies might be used in new and innovative ways during election seasons. Variables associated with the willingness to adopt new technologies and consider new political reporting strategies are analyzed.

This study explores the potential utility of Bayesian statistical method in determining the predictability of multiple polls - it compares Bayesian technique to the classical statistical method employed by pollsters.

In order to see whether men and women emphasize different messages in their campaigns, I examine the televised political advertisements of 38 candidates for the U.S. Senate between 1984 and 1986. In addition, I look at patterns of campaign coverage to determine whether the press distinguish between male and female candidates. Since a candidate's message will be most persuasive if that message is echoed by the press, gender differences in press treatment can have electoral consequences. The results of this study show that male and female senatorial candidates adopt campaign strategies that are similar on certain dimensions and strikingly different on others. Male and female candidates both prefer to focus on policy matters in their candidate-oriented appeals, although they rarely take specific stands on issues. Yet there are important gender differences in the advertisements of male and female candidates and these differences correspond to the candidates' stereotypical strengths. Men tend to concentrate on economic issues, while women are much more likely to discuss social issues such as education and health policy. These differences (and others), although evident in their own campaign communications, are not represented in media coverage of the candidates' campaigns.

The effects of insulting political campaign rhetoric were examined in a laboratory setting. In Study 1, subjects categorized as for, against, or undecided about the issue of French language rights in English Canada read a political debate transcript focusing on this issue in which one candidate insulted or did not insult the other candidate. Backlash was evident on trait ratings: the insult source was rated more negatively in the insult condition than in the control condition, whereas ratings of the target were unaffected. Affective ratings of both candidates were lower in the insult condition than in the control condition. Subjects' attitudes about French language rights also influenced their impressions of the candidates, but did not interact with the insult manipulation. In Study 2, subjects read debate transcripts embedded with insults that attacked either controllable target attributes, uncontrollable target attributes, or that contained no insults. The major findings of Study 1 were replicated, with the additional finding that insults directed at uncontrollable traits of the target produced effects in the same direction as but more extreme than those effects noted for controllable-trait insults. These findings are discussed in terms of political campaign tactics and the application of attribution theory to political person perception.

Although much recent work suggests that contemporary presidential campaigns have more powerful electoral effects than were seen in previous decades, there has been little research that examines the actual effect of recent campaigns on individual vote choice. Using the 1980 NES panel study, I show that the overwhelming majority of individual votes can be accounted for from attitudes such as party identification and presidential approval that are measured before the political conventions, and that changes in orientations during the campaign had limited effects on individual vote choice and negligible consequences for the electoral outcome. Moreover, models derived from the 1980 panel data can predict with a great deal of accuracy the aggregate outcomes of the 1984 and 1988 presidential contests. I argue that the results support an 'activation' model of campaign effects in recent elections: rather than simply reinforcing individuals' preexisting vote intentions, the campaigns served mainly to activate existing political predispositions and make them electorally relevant. At the same time, the results show that campaigns have the potential to exert larger electoral effects, but in recent elections they have not done so.

American presidential campaigns are misunderstood because of the disjuncture between the journalistic community's "dramatic logic," which values surprise, and the "empirical logic" needed to refute incorrect expectations. The logic of story journalism impels journalists to perceive a mythic Quest for the presidency in which (1) Iowa is a crucial test and (2) Super Tuesday helps conservative Democrats. This study reconsiders these myths in light of empirical evidence available to journalists in 1988 and concludes that although neither myth is empirically valid, both enhance the melodramatic quality of the campaign.