The Effects of Lawn Signs on Vote Outcomes

Lawn signs are one of the few campaign tactics deployed by candidates for every level of government in the United States. Inexpensive and relatively easy to deploy, lawn signs are a tactic available to even the most obscure and underfunded candidate for a down-ballot office. Indeed, the efflorescence of roadside lawn signs is often one of the few outward manifestations of a low-salience election.

Although campaign tactics ranging from door-to-door canvassing to robotic phone calls have been evaluated by a vast array of field experiments conducted during the past fifteen years, lawn signs have largely escaped scholarly attention.

Working in collaboration with a congressional candidate, a mayoral candidate, an independent expenditure campaign directed against a gubernatorial candidate, and a candidate for county commissioner, we tested the effects of lawn signs by planting them in randomly selected voting precincts.


More from Science Direct

Americans Are on the Move — Again

Americans are picking up and moving again as the recession fades, personal finances improve and housing markets recover. Counties in Nevada, Arizona, eastern California and Tennessee also saw some of the nation’s biggest growth in movers last year.

“People are finally starting to move again after years of hunkering down,” said Dowell Myers, a demographer at the University of Southern California. “Young people have kept graduating from school and moving into large cities, like Los Angeles and New York. But the normal out-movers have been suppressed. They are finally starting to break out.”

Historically, about 17 percent of families move in a given year, but the recession knocked that number down as low as 11 percent, said Kimball Brace, president of Virginia-based Election Data Services. After two straight years of improvement, the number of moving families has partially recovered to about 15 percent.

“The recession kept people at home. They couldn’t sell their home, they couldn’t find a job,” Brace said. “We’re starting to see bigger numbers. We’re not all the way back.”

By next year it should be clearer how the moves will affect political power, Brace said. But some Sun Belt states already are expected to gain congressional seats at the expense of Northern states where outbound moves are picking up.

Based on current population growth and loss trends, Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Oregon, Texas and Virginia would gain congressional seats in 2020, Election Data Services estimated this year. Alabama, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and West Virginia would lose seats.

More from Pew Trusts

How Fox News Changed American Media and Political Dynamics

The creation of Fox News in 1996 was an event of deep, yet unappreciated, political and historical importance. For the first time, there was a news source available virtually everywhere in the United States, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with a conservative tilt. Finally, conservatives did not have to seek out bits of news favorable to their point of view in liberal publications or in small magazines and newsletters. Like someone dying of thirst in the desert, conservatives drank heavily from the Fox waters.

Soon, it became the dominant – and in many cases, virtually the only – major news source for millions of Americans. This has had profound political implications that are only starting to be appreciated. Indeed, it can almost be called self-brainwashing – many conservatives now refuse to even listen to any news or opinion not vetted through Fox, and to believe whatever appears on it as the gospel truth.

More from SSRN, via Talking Points Memo. Josh Marshall describes writer Bruce Bartlett as "a conservative economist and policy hand (very much out of the supply-side and monetarist movement) who I think still considers himself and by rights is a conservative but at this point in his life is very much a dissident and critic of American conservatism."

Pew Explains Why the Conservatives Live in Their Own “Reality”

The Pew Research group has a great reputation for non-partisan and accurate public polling and political analysis. In fact, it was tied as the most accurate polling organization in the 2012 elections. Given their history of success, it is reasonable to have confidence in the results of their polling, particularly in issues where partisanship is an issue.

[In November], Pew released an exceptional report, detailing the news media habits of Americans based upon their partisan affiliation. Pew polled a large number of Americans to determine their political leanings and news consumption habits. The results of this study were, while not surprising, extremely revealing and informative.

The Pew study concluded that conservatives differ dramatically from liberals and moderates in their news media consumption habits. Moderates and liberals trust a much wider range of sources than conservatives. Similarly, from among the news sources that they trust, conservatives watch/listen to fewer sources while moderates and liberals access a much wider range.

More from the Progressive Cynic.

American cities, ranked by conservatism

A fascinating chart from Representation in Municipal Government, publishing in American Political Science Review and written by MIT political scientists Chris Tausanovitch and Christopher Warshaw. (via Bruce Sterling)
(Image: Carpintera city limit, Al Pavangkanan, CC-BY)

Via BoingBoing

The Growing Blue-State Diaspora

From the New York Times

Californians have moved to Colorado and Nevada. Massachusetts natives have moved to New Hampshire. New Yorkers have moved to North Carolina and Virginia — and, of course, have continued moving to Florida.

Over the last few decades, residents of many traditionally liberal states have moved to states that were once more conservative. And this pattern has played an important role in helping the Democratic Party win the last two presidential elections and four of the last six. The growth of the Latino population and the social liberalism of the millennial generation may receive more attention, but the growing diaspora of blue-state America matters as well.

The blue diaspora has helped offset the fact that many of the nation’s fastest-growing states are traditionally Republican. You can think of it as a kind of race

How Increasing Ideological Uniformity and Partisan Antipathy Affect Politics, Compromise and Everyday Life

Republicans and Democrats are more divided along ideological lines – and partisan antipathy is deeper and more extensive – than at any point in the last two decades. These trends manifest themselves in myriad ways, both in politics and in everyday life. And a new survey of 10,000 adults nationwide finds that these divisions are greatest among those who are the most engaged and active in the political process.

The overall share of Americans who express consistently conservative or consistently liberal opinions has doubled over the past two decades from 10% to 21%. And ideological thinking is now much more closely aligned with partisanship than in the past. As a result, ideological overlap between the two parties has diminished: Today, 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican.

Today 92% of Republicans are to the right of the median Democrat, and 94% of Democrats are to the left of the median Republican
Partisan animosity has increased substantially over the same period. In each party, the share with a highly negative view of the opposing party has more than doubled since 1994. Most of these intense partisans believe the opposing party’s policies “are so misguided that they threaten the nation’s well-being.”

More from Pew Research.

Ideology Influences Community Preference

From Demo Memo:

Would you prefer to live in a community where 1) Houses are larger and farther apart but schools, stores and restaurants are miles away? or 2) Houses are smaller and closer to each other, but schools, stores and restaurants are within walking distance?

That question is posed by Pew Research Center in its 2014 Political Polarization in the American Public survey. The results of the survey show not only growing political polarization between liberals and conservatives over the years, but also that liberals and conservatives are divided by the type of community in which they would prefer to live.

Overall, the public is about evenly split in its community preference, with 49 percent preferring a larger house farther away from amenities and 48 percent preferring a smaller house in a walkable community. By political ideology, the split is anything but even, however...

Democrats are from cities, Republicans are from exurbs

The first reaction many people may have when looking at a standard red/blue map of county-level election results is often "Holy crap, look at all that red!" While that huge red bulls-eye in the nation's middle is easily explained away—trees and tumbleweeds don't vote; only people do—when it's presented without disclaimers, it can help reinforce the perception that this is a "center-right nation." One of the best ways around that is with a cartogram (a map that distorts boundaries to account for another variable, like population) ... but how do we express that in a way that still looks like the United States, and not a piece of purple roadkill?

Princeton's Robert Vanderbei put together a fantastic 3-d map in 2012... that visualizes the country with blue skyscrapers towering over pink plains, reflecting the heavy concentration of votes in urban areas. However, I wanted to try going in a different direction, with a flat map, but one where the color varies by intensity according to the change in the number of votes over the years.

More from Daily Kos.

Who Bought Your Politician?

Ask politicians whether campaign contributions influence their decisions, and they’ll tell you certainly not.

Ask any citizen, and they’ll likely give the opposite answer.

With that in mind, WIRED is re re-introducing a web-based embeddable widget — for anybody to use — that lists the top 10 donors and their contributions to any member of the House and Senate, their opponents, and the presidential candidates. Wired updated the widget in conjunction with Maplight, the Berkeley, California-based nonprofit dedicated to following money and politics.

The Global Gender Gap Report

The Global Gender Gap Report, introduced by the World Economic Forum in 2006, provides a framework for capturing the magnitude and scope of gender-based disparities around the world. The index benchmarks national gender gaps on economic, political, education- and health-based criteria and provides country rankings that allow for effective comparison across regions and income groups and over time.

The rankings are designed to create greater awareness among a global audience of the challenges posed by gender gaps and the opportunities created by reducing them. The methodology and quantitative analysis behind the rankings are intended to serve as a basis for designing effective measures for reducing gender gaps.

What Your Beer Says About Your Politics

From the National Journal:

Americans who most often drink Dos Equis are in the middle-of-the-road while drinkers of Heineken's flagship brand are strongly Democratic. Samuel Adams drinkers are strongly Republican, and more likely to vote.

Beer has a long and storied place in American presidential history and politics.

What 100 years of voting looks like

From Salon.com:

The story of American politics over the last few generations is one of ever increasing partisan polarization. Barack Obama was able to pick off a few Republican states in 2008, but ideology and party identity have largely synced up, draining the electoral map of much of its fluidity. When it comes to presidential politics, there are a lot of red states, a lot of blue states, and only a few true swing states...

To fully appreciate the journey that produced today’s polarized electoral map and the trends that will shape the future, Salon’s art director, Benjamin Wheelock, pored over a century’s worth of presidential, congressional and gubernatorial election results from every state, assigning each a shade of blue or red for each election year. Watch as the map travels backward from the divide we know today...

Politicization of Science in the Public Sphere: A Study of Public Trust in the US, 1974-2010

Source: American Sociological Review

This study explores time trends in public trust in science in the United States from 1974 to 2010. More precisely, the author, Gordon Gauchat, tests Mooney’s (2005) claim that conservatives in the United States have become increasingly distrustful of science.

2012 Presidential Primaries, Caucuses, and Conventions

Here is a chronological list of all the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries, caucuses, and conventions in 2012.

There are data to the states' rules. For instance:
Tuesday 24 April 2012 (tentative): 81 of 95 of New York's delegates to the Republican National Convention (3? from each of the state's 28 Congressional Districts) are allocated to presidential contenders in today's New York Presidential Primary.

There are also links to state constitutions, election authority (e.g. state Board of Elections), legislature, political parties and media.

Men Rule: The Continued Under-Representation of Women in U. S. Politics

Study after study finds that, when women run for office, they perform just as well as their male counterparts. No differences emerge in women and men’s fundraising receipts, vote totals, or electoral success. Yet women remain severely under-represented in U.S. political institutions. We argue that the fundamental reason for women’s under-representation is that they do not run for office. There is a substantial gender gap in political ambition; men tend to have it, and women don’t.

More HERE [PDF].
(Thanks to Dustbury.

OpenSecrets.org - looking at dollars flowing thru political campaigns

With the presidential election on the far horizon, political campaigns will be front page news for the next several months, and a big part of the political news will focus on money: who is raising it, who is giving it, who is spending it, and what they are spending it on.

OpenSecrets.org, produced by the Center for Responsive Politics, provides an easy way to look at the dollars flowing through the campaigns, using data from the Federal Election Commission. This comprehensive website covers presidential, house and senate campaign finance, offering detailed fundraising profiles for each candidate, with rankings of donating industries and major contributors. PAC money is accounted for, with data on “outside spending” supporting and opposing the candidate, and head-to-head comparisons of presidential candidates allow you to directly compare, for example, the key industries donating to Santorum with those supporting Obama. For representatives and senators, comparisons to congressional fund-raising averages are provided, along with a listing of bills sponsored and co-sponsored.

OpenSecrets.org offers extensive and well organized information on campaign finance. The data is easily readable, and illustrated by graphs. If you are wondering where all the money comes from, Open Secrets.org will open the books for you.

What Congress Would Look Like If It Really Represented America

From http://www.good.is/

America is getting more and more diverse — for instance, our Hispanic population grew by 43 percent in the past decade alone — but you'd never be able to tell it by looking at our Congress. Here's what the House and Senate look like today, and what they would look like if they were demographically representative of our nation.

One thing not noted on this infographic is that, besides being nothing like America in terms of race, sex, or religion, our senators and representatives are also wholly different from most Americans in terms of wealth.

Census aims to (finally) move into the future

From USA Today:
...
As hundreds of thousands of workers knock on doors this summer to collect information for the 2010 Census, momentum is mounting to drag future Censuses into the 21st century.
This year's Census may be the last to be filled out completely by hand and conducted primarily through mailings and home visits.
Almost certain for 2020: many people logging onto a secured Census website and filling out the form with a few keystrokes instead of pen, paper and a pre-addressed envelope.
...
Every change and every dollar spent on the Census requires approval from Congress — a reality that creates political tussling every 10 years.

The Census Bureau answers to the Commerce Department, which is headed by presidential appointees who can change after elections every four years — often in the middle of a 10-year Census cycle, when new strategies are being studied.

The Tea in Television

American Consumers Newsletter
from Cheryl Russell, Editorial Director,
New Strategist Publications

The latest time use statistics might reveal the fuel of the Tea Party fire: the growing television addiction among older men. No one watches more TV than men aged 65 or older. They spend nearly one-third of their waking hours (4.63 hours per day) watching television as their primary activity, according to the 2008 American Time Use Survey. Men aged 55 to 64 rank second in television viewing (3.81 hours per day). Men aged 45 to 54 rank fourth (3.09 hours per day), behind women aged 65 or older (3.69 hours per day). Older men not only watch a lot of TV, but they are watching a lot more. In the past five years, men aged 45 or older have added 28 to 46 minutes to their daily dose of television. No other age group comes close.

These findings might explain the demographics of the Tea Party movement. Eighteen percent of Americans say they are Tea Party supporters, according to a New York Times poll taken last month. The 75 percent majority of supporters are aged 45 or older (versus 50 percent of all adults), and 59 percent are men (versus 49 percent of all adults).

What is the link between television and Tea Party supporters? Just ask them, which is what the New York Times did. The 47 percent plurality of Tea Party supporters acknowledge that most of their information about the movement comes from television. Not just any television, either. Sixty-three percent say they are most likely to watch Fox News for information about politics and current events.

The great majority of Tea Partiers think their beliefs are shared by most Americans. Fully 84 percent think the views of the Tea Party movement reflect the views of the general public. They are misinformed about this, and that might explain their anger.
According to the New York Times:
• 85 percent of Tea Party supporters do not think the federal government should require Americans to get health insurance. Only 45 percent of the general public agrees.
• 76 percent of Tea Party supporters want the federal government to cut the deficit rather than create jobs. Only 42 percent of the general public agrees.
• 51 percent of Tea Party supporters think global warming will not have a serious impact on the environment. Only 24 percent of the general public agrees.
• 52 percent of Tea Party supporters think too much has been made of the problems facing blacks. Only 28 percent of the general public agrees.
• 53 percent of Tea Party supporters think the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision (giving women the right to abortion) was a bad thing. Only 34 percent of the general public agrees.
• Only 17 percent of Tea Party supporters favor raising taxes on households making more than $250,000 a year. The 54 percent majority of all Americans favor higher taxes on those households.
Fifty-three percent of Tea Party supporters say they are angry about the way things are going in Washington. When asked why they are angry, the single most important reason--after health care reform--is that Washington does not represent the people. That may be true, but Tea Party supporters do not represent the people either. They are much more likely than the average American to be retired, collecting Social Security benefits, and covered by Medicare. They are much more likely than the average American to watch a lot of TV.

If you have questions or comments about the above editorial, e-mail New Strategist at demographics@newstrategist.com.