1. Do Campaigns Matter?

2. Make a list! Campaigns matter! (Why? Always?)
Campaigns don’t matter at all!
(Why not? Never?)

3. What determines election outcomes?
Long term voter predispositions

4. Funnel of Causality
Long term, stable partisan and policy predispositions
Current policy preferences and perceptions of current conditions
Retrospective evaluations of the president concerning results
Impressions of the candidates’ personal qualities
Prospective evaluations of the candidates and parties
Vote choice

5. What determines election outcomes?
Long term voter predispositions
Issues, for issue voters
Current events and the ECONOMY (pres. esp.)
Candidates and Campaigns?

6. Campaigns Matter? There is some conversion of voters (14%?)
There is some activation of voters (15%?)
Presidential elections:
Convention effects
Late campaign events
They raise issues and shape candidate images that can affect marginal elections

7. When do campaigns have a bigger effect?
In close elections
On nonpartisan voters
On uninformed voters

8. What affects whether a campaign can persuade undecideds?
How much is known about the candidate
How much counter-information is available
Whether campaign arguments are accepted as relevant to voters’ lives

9. Implications for strategy: Motivate, inspire and turn out committed voters? -Or- Win over and turn out swing voters?