Research
Projects
Dissertation: "The Electoral Intersection: Information and Context"
Data collection: The Visible Primary '08
PolMeth XXV poster: Learning from the Campaign Environment
Papers
Treating Individuals with Campaign Exposure: Information in Presidential Elections
Abstract: Extant literature makes clear that both individual information and contextual political factors impact political behavior, but how they work together is less obvious. By explicitly modeling the relationship between individual level information and contextual campaign factors, I disentangle these two sources of information from each other. I use data from the 2000 NES and multivariate matching with dichotomous and ordinal treatments of campaign exposure. I find that presidential campaign exposure exhibits varying impacts across several kinds of political information and behavior.
The Visible Primary: Dynamics in Presidential Primary Campaign Coverage (with Corwin Smidt)
Abstract: We investigate the mechanisms of presidential primary exposure and candidate success, with a focus on the Iowa Caucuses and the New Hampshire Primaries. We utilize an original and extensive dataset of campaign articles from local and national newspaper websites coupled with a collection of statewide polls to analyze the dynamic relationships in primary campaigns. Results from Bayesian vector autoregression models in state-specific samples show that local media, national media and candidate preferences have endogenous impacts on one another, conditional on the candidate. Furthemore, and contrary to extant literature, there is firm evidence that success in the polls is not purely reactive but also determinative.
The Role of Information in Economic Voting (with Dean Lacy)
Abstract: The effect of evaluations of the economy on vote choice may vary with a voter's level of information. While previous studies have compared the effect of information only on contextual (sociotropic or pocketbook) evaluations of the economy, we examine both temporal (prospective or retrospective) and contextual evaluations of the economy in one model. We avoid the problematic endogeneity of prospective economic evaluations and vote choice by measuring prospective evaluations as dependent on which candidate a voter believes will win. Using pooled data from the American National Election Studies (ANES), 1980 to 2000, we show that voter information does not influence the effect of retrospective evaluations of the economy, either sociotropic or pocketbook. The effects of prospective economic evaluations on vote choice increase with a voter's information level.
Prospective Battlegrounds and Retrospective Landslides: Presidential Approval, Information and Campaign Effects in the 2004 Electoral Campaign.
Abstract: This research addresses the link between presidential approval and evaluations of the economy, by culling insight from the literatures on media effects and information heterogeneity. It utilizes split sample probit models to show that the 2004 presidential campaigns pushed individuals to base their political opinions on prospective evaluations of the economy. In other words, the campaigns transferred individuals' economic evaluation focus onto the future state of their pocketbooks. In heavily campaigned states only the most sophisticated are able to base their presidential approval on retrospective or sociotropic evaluations of the economy, while in less campaigned states retrospective sociotropic evaluations are prevalent in the political behavior of individuals of different levels of political information. Subsequent time-series cross-section analyses of the 1980 to 2004 electoral campaigns suggest that the impact of the 2004 campaign on politically relevant economic evaluations may be a finding unique to that campaign.
The Conditional Impact of Moral Values: The 2006 Ohio Gubernatorial Election (with Herbert Weisberg).
Abstract: We argue that moral values played key roles in the 2006 Ohio Gubernatorial Election conditional on voters' political sophistication. Failing to control for political sophistication leads to insufficient conclusions about the divergent impact of moral values across a heterogeneous electorate. We enlist informationally split logit models and find that voting on moral issues is limited to highly sophisticated individuals, whereas voting on religious and political entanglement is limited to the moderately sophisticated. Subsequent structural equation models trace indirect effects of moral values to party identification, ideology, evaluations of the economy, incumbent approval and candidate evaluation. Furthermore, the impact of ideology on the vote is limited to high sophisticates, while party identification and incumbent approval act as cognitive short-cuts for a host of political decisions among low sophisticates. Finally, our paper adds to the literature concerned with specific definitions of moral values.
Weisberg, Herbert F. and Dino P. Christenson. 2007. Changing Horses in Wartime? The 2004 Presidential Election. Political Behavior, 29: 279-304.
Abstract: The literature makes clear that foreign policy affects voting, but it does not lead to clear expectations as to how a war will affect voting. Will views about the advisability of the war predominate? Or will the indirect effect through the incumbent's image be more important? Will a war crowd out other potential issues, particularly domestic ones? This paper addresses these questions through a series of focused analyses of NES survey data. We find that an increase in strong Republican partisans clinched the election for President Bush. The Iraq War was not a direct vote gainer for the President, but the larger War on Terrorism burnished his image as a leader, at least long enough to win the election. Likewise, the cultural war allowed President Bush to retain some of the votes that he might otherwise have lost due to the unpopularity of the Iraq War.
Resources & Code
An Introduction to Using R (pdf)
Accompanying R Script (txt)
Accompanying Data (zip)
OLS Data Analysis in R (pdf)
Accompanying R Script (txt)
Accompanying Data (zip)
An Introduction to Stata (pdf)
Accompanying Data & .Do File (zip)
Addendum on Importing Data (pdf)
Guide on Fixed Width Data Importing (pdf)
The 2004 NES