The Effect of Television Advertising in United States Elections

Sides, John; Vavreck, Lynn; Warshaw, Christopher

doi:10.1017/s000305542100112x

Cited by 32 publications

(23 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Otherwise, factual information may be insufficient to affect attitudes. This finding corresponds with other persuasion research, which shows that the quantity of messages matters (Sides et al, 2021;Spenkuch & Toniatti, 2018).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Fact-checking Trump’s election lies can improve confidence in U.S. elections: Experimental evidence

2022

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As the 2020 campaign unfolded, with a mix of extraordinary embellishments and outright falsehoods, President Trump’s attacks on the integrity of the U.S. electoral system grew louder and more frequent. Trump-aligned Republican candidates have since advanced similar false claims in their own campaigns in the lead-up to the 2022 midterm elections. Scholars, election officials, and even fellow Republican leaders have voiced concerns that Trump’s rhetoric represents a profound threat to the well-being of U.S. democracy. To investigate the capacity for fact-checking efforts to repair the damage incurred by election-related misinformation, in the weeks before the 2020 election, we fielded a survey experiment on a nationally representative sample to test whether exposure to fact-checks of Trump’s false claims increased participants’ confidence in the integrity of the U.S. election and affected their voting behavior. Although our pre-registered analysis offered no evidence that corrections affect voting behavior, our findings do show that exposure to these fact-checks can increase confidence in the integrity of the 2020 U.S. election. However, the effects varied significantly by partisanship, with these changes concentrated among Democrats and Independents.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 92%

Fact-checking Trump’s election lies can improve confidence in U.S. elections: Experimental evidence

2022

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“…We show that WinRed appears to be especially effective in mobilizing online donors for female candidates and those who rely more on small-dollar donors, both historically represented in Congress. Since campaign funds are a valuable form of electoral and legislative resources, the types of candidates whom the platform disproportionately benefits, then, may not only enjoy greater electoral security via campaign spending (Sides et al, 2021), but also be more empowered to seize control of the party and legislative agenda through influence-buying among copartisan candidates Larson, 2005, 2012;Kistner, 2022). Future work may further examine salient candidate attributes that account for heterogeneity in WinRed's ability to boost fundraising.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Keep Winning with WinRed? Online Fundraising Platform as the Party’s Public Good

Kim

Zhao

2023

Preprint

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We show that WinRed’s emergence as Republicans’ leading online fundraising platform proves how parties can evolve to help members achieve their ambitions (Aldrich, 2011). We document that despite mounting fundraising pressures, Republicans’ adaptation to online fundraising had been slow and disjointed until 2019, while Democrats already had a coordinated fundraising platform (ActBlue). We theorize that the Republican Party, internalizing the collective benefits of coordinating members onto a single fundraising platform, created WinRed to rival ActBlue and implemented a top-down approach to enforce candidate adoption of this platform. We find that, in contrast to ActBlue, WinRed’s public rhetoric extols its value to the party’s shared fortunes, and that Republicans coordinated their online solicitation strategies on WinRed. Furthermore, a panel matching design shows the promise delivered: candidates, especially women and those reliant on small-dollar donations, reaped significant fundraising benefits upon joining WinRed. We discuss how this centralization may transform the GOP’s future.

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“…First, campaign spending data points to the enduring influence of political professionals in U.S. elections . Despite mixed evidence regarding the persuasive effects of advertising (Sides et al 2022;Kalla and Broockman 2018), media and digital spending together account for almost 60% of all political expenditures-more than $8.4 billion in 2020. By comparison, campaigns spend comparatively little on direct voter contact such as canvassing, phone, or mail ($312 million in 2020) despite evidence of its effects on turnout (Enos and Fowler 2018).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Digital Advertising in U.S. Federal Elections, 2004-2020

Sheingate¹,

Scharf²,

Delahanty³

2022

JQD

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Digital advertising is now a commonplace feature of political communication in the United States. Previous research has documented the key innovations associated with digital political advertising and its consequences for campaigns and elections. However, a comprehensive picture of political spending on digital advertising remains elusive because of the challenges associated with accessing and analyzing data. We address this challenge with a unique dataset (N=3,639,166) derived from over 13 million expenditure records reported to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) between 2004 and 2020. Employing a machine learning model to classify expenditures into nine categories including digital ads and services, this paper makes four key observations. First, 2020 was a watershed election in the growth of digital campaign spending. Second, there are clear partisan differences in the resources allocated to digital advertising. Third, platform companies play a central role in an otherwise partisan market for digital ads and services. Fourth, digital platforms and consultants occupy a distinct ideological niche within each party.

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The Effect of Television Advertising in United States Elections

Cited by 32 publications

References 63 publications

Fact-checking Trump’s election lies can improve confidence in U.S. elections: Experimental evidence

Fact-checking Trump’s election lies can improve confidence in U.S. elections: Experimental evidence

Keep Winning with WinRed? Online Fundraising Platform as the Party’s Public Good

Digital Advertising in U.S. Federal Elections, 2004-2020

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