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The Effect of TV Ads and Candidate Appearances on Statewide Presidential Votes, 1988–96

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  • Shaw, Daron R.

Abstract

Although presidential campaigns have been mythologized in literature and cinema, most theories of elections relegate them to a secondary role, presuming they have little effect on outcomes. Direct tests of campaigning's influence on electoral college votes are rare, mostly because statewide data on the allocation of resources and voters' preferences have been hard to obtain. Many studies suggest a minimal effect, but it is possible that a more significant influence might be found with better data on the key dependent and independent variables. This study uses data on presidential candidates' appearances and television advertising purchases to conduct cross-sectional and pooled time-series analyses of their influence on statewide outcomes in 1988, 1992, and 1996. The data demonstrate that, despite the conditioning influence of other factors, campaigning affected statewide preferences as well as the electoral college vote.

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  • Shaw, Daron R., 1999. "The Effect of TV Ads and Candidate Appearances on Statewide Presidential Votes, 1988–96," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 93(2), pages 345-361, June.
  • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:93:y:1999:i:02:p:345-361_21
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    Cited by:

    1. Jonathan R. Cervas & Bernard Grofman, 2017. "Why noncompetitive states are so important for understanding the outcomes of competitive elections: the Electoral College 1868–2016," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 173(3), pages 251-265, December.
    2. Dušan Pavlović & Dimitros Xefteris, 2020. "Qualifying the common pool problem in government spending: the role of positional externalities," Constitutional Political Economy, Springer, vol. 31(4), pages 446-457, December.
    3. Wilson Law, 2021. "Decomposing political advertising effects on vote choices," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 525-547, September.
    4. Klingler, Jonathan, 2014. "Political Capital in the 21st Century: An Electoral Theory of Going Public and Private," IAST Working Papers 15-19, Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse (IAST).
    5. Hummel, Patrick & Holden, Richard, 2014. "Optimal primaries," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 64-75.
    6. Matthew L. Bergbower & Scott D. McClurg & Thomas Holbrook, 2015. "Presidential Campaign Spending and Correct Voting from 2000 to 2008," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 96(5), pages 1196-1213, November.
    7. Eric Dunaway & Felix Munoz-Garcia, 2020. "Campaign contributions and policy convergence: asymmetric agents and donations constraints," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 184(3), pages 429-461, September.
    8. Davis, Brent, 2016. "“On the Campaign Trail: The Electoral Effects of Leader Visits”," MPRA Paper 75330, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Lingling Zhang & Doug J. Chung, 2020. "The Air War vs. the Ground Game: An Analysis of Multichannel Marketing in U.S. Presidential Elections," Marketing Science, INFORMS, vol. 39(5), pages 872-892, September.
    10. Wendy K. Tam Cho & James G. Gimpel, 2010. "Rough Terrain: Spatial Variation in Campaign Contributing and Volunteerism," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 54(1), pages 74-89, January.
    11. Christopher J. Devine & Kyle C. Kopko, 2018. "Split Tickets? On the Strategic Allocation of Presidential Versus Vice Presidential Campaign Visits in 2016," SAGE Open, , vol. 8(3), pages 21582440187, August.

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