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American Politics Research
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The Reasoning Voter Meets the Strategic Candidate

Signals and Specificity in Campaign Advertising, 1998

LYNN VAVRECK

University of California, Los Angeles

Theories of voting suggest voters use shortcuts to minimize the costs associated with becoming informed about candidates' policy positions. Although there is much theorizing about how voters use cues, there is little empirical work on whether candidates send them. Data from advertisements run during the 1998 elections show that candidates do not often send obvious kinds of policy relevant cues—information about party and ideology. This analysis of advertising suggests that candidates send signals in strategic ways. They obfuscate to avoid being labeled a partisan of the less popular party, but they know when they are not well known enough (being a challenger) such that party may help people learn about them. In open primaries, candidates attempt to steal voters away from the opposing party by not explicitly mentioning their party or ideology but by talking about specific issue positions in hopes of attracting independent voters.

American Politics Research, Vol. 29, No. 5, 507-529 (2001)
DOI: 10.1177/1532673X01029005005
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