Print It Yourself! The Electoral Impact of Door-to-door Newsletter Circulation in Hungary

We evaluate the impact of a door-to-door information campaign on the outcome of Hungary’s 2022 parliamentary elections. Although newsletter circulation was not randomized, we employ three complementary identification strategies that yield consistent results: (i) settlement-level fixed-effects regressions with rich controls for concurrent campaign activity, (ii) a weather-based instrumental variable exploiting changes in local air pressure, and (iii) within-settlement comparisons using GPS data on activist routes. We find small but statistically significant positive effects on voter turnout, opposition vote share, and the share of invalid ballots in a government-backed anti-LGBTQ referendum. The latter result, in particular, suggests that the campaign succeeded in transmitting relatively sophisticated political messages even within a highly constrained media environment. Because the campaign did not reduce support for the ruling party, its effect appears to have operated primarily through mobilizing previously disengaged voters.