Etch-a-Sketching: Evaluating the Post-Primary Rhetorical Moderation Hypothesis

Abstract

Candidates have incentives to present themselves as strong partisans in primary elections, and then move “toward the center” upon advancing to the general election. Yet, candidates also face incentives not to flip-flop on their policy positions. These competing incentives suggest that candidates might use rhetoric to seem more partisan in the primary and more moderate in the general, even if their policy positions remain fixed. We test this idea by measuring ideological moderation in presidential campaign language. Using a supervised two-stage text analysis model, we find evidence that presidential candidates in 2008 and 2012 use more ideologically extreme language during primary campaigns, and then moderate their tone when shifting to the general election, with troubling implications for representation and accountability.

A scoping review on the use of natural language processing in research on political polarization: trends and research prospects

“…Number of disagreed word-pairs present a quantifiable measure of polarization. Other proposals have been also made to operationalize polarization, see Gross et al [ 51 ], and Acree et al [ 52 ].…”

“…Other authors, for example Gross et al [ 51 ], Acree et al [ 52 ], and Iliev et al [ 13 ] developed their own statistical models to identify temporal changes in ideological positions.…”

“…Some examples show that if there are only computer scientists among the authors, the interpretation is often missing, and the research questions are rather technical [ 82 ]. And vice versa: if there are only social scientist co-authors, the methodology is fairly simple, although the paper is rich in content: the research questions are explained, the meta-variables are well-chosen, and the results are embedded in an existing scientific discourse [ 51 , 52 ].…”

“…Farrell et al [54], for example, analyzed texts written by US organizations about climate change over a 20-year period, and applied STM to examine how corporate funding ties influenced the change in topics over time. Other authors, for example Gross et al [51], Acree et al [52], and Iliev et al [13] developed their own statistical models to identify temporal changes in ideological positions.…”

When Two Become One? Examining Kamala Harris and Joe Biden's Campaign Themes from Primary to General Election

“…Given the relevance of Twitter in modern campaigning, it is important to assess how running mates use this platform. Second, while there is some research charting how eventual nominees communicated in the primaries and general election (e.g., Acree et al 2020; Coe and Reitzes 2010; Hart and Lind 2010), there is no work systematically tracking the evolution of how two separate campaigns rhetorically become one. This study provides such analysis and in doing so it illuminates how they each evolved their communication, as well as the potential interactive effects on each other's campaign communications, such as how running mates realign communicatively to suit the nominee.…”