Voter Learning in State Primary Elections. Issue 1 (17th March 2014)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Hirano, Shigeo; Lenz, Gabriel S.; Pinkovskiy, Maksim; Snyder, James M.
• Is Part Of: American journal of political science. Volume 59:Issue 1(2015:Jan.)
• Page Start: 91
• Page End: 108
• Publication Date: 2014-03-17
• Subjects: Political science -- Periodicals; Electronic journals; Computer network resources; 320.05
• DOI: 10.1111/ajps.12093
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0092-5853

Abstract

<abstract abstract-type="main"> <title> <x xml:space="preserve">Abstract</x> </title> <p>When voters learn about candidates' issue positions during election campaigns, does it affect how they vote? This basic question about voters remains unanswered in part because of a methodological obstacle: learning candidates' issue positions may influence not only voters' vote choice but also their issue positions. To surmount this obstacle, we attempt to answer this question by examining statewide primary elections, which are arguably less vulnerable to this reverse causation problem because they lack partisan cues and are of much lower salience than presidential elections. Using both existing polling data and our own panel Internet surveys, we find that voters learn about the ideologies of candidates during statewide primary campaigns and that this learning affects their voting decisions in senate and gubernatorial primaries. We fail to find similar results for down‐ballot primaries, raising questions about voters' ability to make informed judgments for these types of elections.</p> </abstract>