The Electoral College, Mobilization, and Turnout in the 2000 Presidential Election

Abstract

This study takes a two-stage approach to examining the impact of the electoral college on turnout in the 2000 presidential election. First, we examine whether battleground states received more media spending and visits by the candidates and their party committees compared to nonbattleground states. Second, we examine whether media spending and candidate visits were related to state-level turnout. The results of the project show that the battleground states did receive significantly more media expenditures and candidate visits from the two major party campaigns than nonbattleground states. Furthermore, when controlling for state-level contextual and political factors, the more media expenditures and candidate visits a state received the higher the state turnout. Finally, the analysis reveals that state battleground status indirectly impacted state-level turnout through its effect on media spending and candidate visits.

The Consequences of Battleground and “Spectator” State Residency for Political Participation

“…Ideally, one would use CNN state rankings (Huber and Arceneaux 2007;Bergan et al 2005) or margins in state polls (Holbrook and McClurg 2005) prior to the start of the general election to gauge state competitiveness, but these measures are not available for the earlier elections in this study. Instead, I use the categorization of states created by Daron Shaw based on his interviews with presidential campaign consultants (Gimpel et al 2007;Hill and McKee 2005). Because Shaw was trying to analyze how a state's competitiveness affected candidates' allocation of resources, his measure captures how the candidates saw the electoral battlefield prior to the start of the general election (1999b, p. 896).…”

“…Most scholars are concerned about the persuasive effects of presidential campaigns (Shaw 2006;Johnston et al 2004;Holbrook 1994Holbrook , 1996Finkel 1993), while others have examined their effect on partisanship (Allsop and Weisberg 1988), public opinion (Gelman and King 1993;Ansolabehere et al 1993), political information (Wattenberg and Brians 1999), and issue preferences and priorities (Alvarez 1997;Wattenberg and Brians 1999). Recently, scholars have begun to shift their attention to the mobilizing effects of presidential campaigns (Holbrook and McClurg 2005;Bergan et al 2005;Hill and McKee 2005;Gershtenson 2003;Gerber and Green 2000) arguing that this is an especially important issue in an era ''when campaigns have lost their local organizational roots'' (Holbrook and McClurg 2005, p. 701). Most of these studies, however, have interpreted ''mobilization'' in a narrow fashion by focusing only on turnout.…”

“…5 Much of the work that has examined these effects has analyzed data from a single election year (Hill and McKee 2005;Benoit et al 2004) but there are several problems with this approach. First, presidential campaigning has changed in crucial ways during the last two decades.…”

“…Three single election studies (Bergan et al 2005;Holbrook and McClurg 2005;Hill and McKee 2005) and one multi-election study (Wolak 2006) have examined turnout differences. Both Hill and McKee and Wolak found that battleground state turnout was significantly higher in the 2000 election, but Holbrook and McClurg found no difference and conclude that in terms of mobilization, ''the competitive environment is not terribly important'' (701).…”

The role of the political context in voting indecision

“…people may be encouraged to invest more time and money because they expect higher returns (i.e. greater chances of influencing the electoral outcome) (Cox and Munger 1989;Aldrich 1993;Hill and McKee 2005). In sum, highly competitive elections generate more interest among the electorate and increase the information available, reducing voters' cognitive costs of making a decision.…”