Abstract
Decades of research suggests that campaign contact together with an advantageous socioeconomic profile increases the likelihood of casting a ballot. Measurement and modeling handicaps permit a lingering uncertainty about campaign communication as a source of political mobilization however. Using data from a uniquely detailed telephone survey conducted in a pair of highly competitive 2002 U.S. Senate races, we further investigate who gets contacted, in what form, and with what effect. We conclude that even in high-profile, high-dollar races the most important determinant of voter turnout is vote history, but that holding this variable constant reveals a positive effect for campaign communication among “seldom” voters, registered but rarely active participants who—ironically—are less likely than regular or intermittent voters to receive such communication.
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Notes
The arrival of mass quantities of public opinion data, together with the computer technology to analyze them, undoubtedly enhanced the allure of this approach. Patterson and Caldeira (1983) suggest as much when they explicitly reference the “seminal electoral research of the Survey Research Center at the University of Michigan” in their review of the literature (676).
In fact, though the authors made an effort to include several “competitive” races in their research design, the average turnout rate across the six elections was just 25.6%.
Also on the Arkansas ballot in 2002 was a gubernatorial contest between the Republican incumbent, Mike Huckabee, and long-time Democratic state treasurer, Jimmie Lou Fisher. While it is likely some “bleed over” occurred in campaign communication for the two races, total spending (candidate plus noncandidate) in the Pryor–Hutchinson contest exceeded the other by at least threefold (15 million dollars as compared with five).
Eighty-eight percent of the total sample reported voting, comporting with the “overreporting” pattern of previous studies. As Katosh and Traugott (1981) and Sigelman (1982) argue, however, most inferences based on reported vote remain true when tested against validated vote (though, see also Hill and Hurley 1984). In addition, recent work suggests that survey participation itself does not boost vote likelihood; see Mann (2005).
The question regarding telephone contact was included only in the third wave because such efforts at voter stimulus tend to occur later in campaigns.
The specific items were: (1) “On an average day this past week, how many pieces of mail about the U.S. Senate race did you receive?” (2) “On an average day this past week, how many television ads about the U.S. Senate race did you see?” (3) “On an on average day this past week, how many radio ads about the U.S. Senate race did you hear?” (4) “On an average day this past week, how many times were you contacted in person by someone with information about the U.S. Senate race?” and (5) “On an average day this past week, how many telephone calls about the U.S. Senate race did you receive?” While a similar question was asked about e-mail communication, the number of missing responses was too great to yield significant results or to impute—comfortably—values for the missing data.
While the respective means for total contact were similar for Missouri and Arkansas examined independently, there was some variation in the way the campaigns were conducted. Missourians, for example, reported receiving significantly more mail and radio than Arkansans.
While only in-person contact presented a statistically significant difference in means between intermittent and regular voters, most of the differences between seldoms and consistents achieved significance of at least .05. Differences are significant in most “% no contact” observations as well, particularly within targeted types.
We also ran each model with a dummy variable to control for state, on the possibility that AR and MO have different enough political histories and institutional arrangements to impact voter mobilization; it was (grossly) insignificant each time.
With Green and Gerber (2000) and Gerber et al. (2003) in mind, we ran three additional models that included each of the “targeted contact” variables—in-person contact, mail contact, and telephone contact—alone. Only mail approached significance as a predictor of turnout. Vote history retained its dominant position while mail contact produced a coefficient of .032 and a significance value of .097 (standard error = .020).
Multicollinearity among the separate forms of contact are not to blame for such poor performance. No single form is significantly correlated (Pearson, 2-tailed, at .01) with another at a level higher than .294.
We present separate models for the three types of voters for ease of interpretation. We note however that the effects are statistically significant across different types of voters. Including a variable in the full model interacting canvassed contacts with a dummy for seldom voters (versus all others), we find that the interactive term is positive and significant. For the constituent terms, seldom voters are significantly less likely to vote when canvassed contact is zero. Canvassed contact has no significant effect for voters who are intermittent or regular voters.
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Acknowledgements
The authors wish to thank David Magleby and Quin Monson of the Center for Elections and Democracy at Brigham Young University for providing us these data. We also wish to thank Gary King for his assistance with the Amelia imputation program, and John Szmer for his helpful advice. Any errors in interpretation are the responsibility of the authors.
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Appendix
Appendix
Variable | Description |
|---|---|
Voted | Coded 1 for respondents who reported voting in the 2002 general election, 0 otherwise |
Education | Ranges from 1 for “less than high school” to 8 for “postdoctoral work” |
Income | Household income ranges from 1 for “less than $ 15,000 per year” to 12 “more than $ 150,000 per year” (Honaker, et. al’s Amelia program was used to impute 208 missing values.) |
Age | Age in years ranging from 18 to 89 |
White | Coded 1 for white, 0 otherwise |
Female | Coded 1 for female, 0 otherwise |
Married | Coded 1 for married respondents, 0 otherwise |
Interest | Ranges from 1 for “not at all interested” to 4 for “very much interested” |
Partisan | Folded measure of strength of party identification; ranges from 1 for “independent” to 4 for “strong Democrat or Republican” |
Efficacy | Additive index of three standard efficacy items (e.g., “Public officials do not care much about what people like me think”); ranges from 3 (lowest efficacy) to 15 (highest efficacy) |
Mail Pieces | Total number of mail pieces “received on an average day this past week,” additive scale for three waves |
TV Spots | Total number of TV spots “seen on an average day this past week,” additive scale for three waves |
Radio Spots | Total number of radio spots “heard on in average day this past week,” additive scale for three waves |
In-person contacts | Total number of in-person contacts “received on an average day this past week,” additive scale for three waves |
Telephone calls | Total number of telephone calls “received in on an average day this past week,” asked in wave 3 only |
Total contact | Total number of any form of campaign contact “received on an average day this past week,” additive scale for three waves |
Targeted contact | Total number of in-person, mail, and telephone contacts “received on an average day this past week,” additive scale for three waves |
Vote history | Coded 1 through 7 for “never,” “only a few elections,” “only elections I’m interested in,” “presidential elections,” “every two years,” “almost every election,” and “every election,” respectively |
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Parry, J., Barth, J., Kropf, M. et al. Mobilizing the Seldom Voter: Campaign Contact and Effects in High-Profile Elections. Polit Behav 30, 97–113 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-007-9042-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11109-007-9042-9