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Campaign Intensity and Voter Information

A Look at Gubernatorial Contests

University of New Mexico

Although campaigns for public office are popularly thought to "matter," conventional academic wisdom suggests otherwise. However, an alternative perspective posits that campaigns, at a minimum, inform voters. I hypothesize that campaigns for governor in the American states raise levels of information among state voters. In particular, I expect that hard-fought contests will inform state voters, whereas low-key races will fail to inform the state electorate. I employ a standard ordinary least squares multivariate model of voter information, using data from a variety of sources, including the American National Election Study's Senate 1990 Study, campaign spending data on governors' races, and additional aggregate-level measures. I find that the level of information among state electorates is dependent on gubernatorial campaign intensity. These findings allow me to speculate on the possible relationship between campaign intensity and vote choice in these previously understudied and poorly understood contests.

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