1. How do voters make decisions???

2. Campaigns in Voting Theories VotersRole of Campaigns IgnorantTo manipulate

3. Campaigns in Voting Theories VotersRole of Campaigns IgnorantTo manipulate Bounded rationality

4. Campaigns in Voting Theories VotersRole of Campaigns IgnorantTo manipulate Bounded rationalityTo provide simple information to help people use shortcuts

5. Campaigns in Voting Theories VotersRole of Campaigns IgnorantTo manipulate Bounded rationalityTo provide simple information to help people use shortcuts Highly socialized

6. Campaigns in Voting Theories VotersRole of Campaigns IgnorantTo manipulate Bounded rationalityTo provide simple information to help people use shortcuts Highly socializedMeaningless?

7. 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

8. Sociological factors

9. Voting in 2008 by race

10. Percent of blacks who voted Democratic minus percent of whites who voted Democratic

11. Gender In 1992: –Male: 1% more D than R –Female:16% more D than R In 2004: –Male: 1% more D than R –Female:11% more D than R –Gender Gap in voting in 2008: 11%

12. Gender gap

13. Religion In 1992: –Committed mainline Protestant: 17% more R than D –Nominal mainline Protestant 10% more R –Committed evangelical Protestant 3% more R –Nominal evangelical Protestant 20% more D –Committed Catholic 31% more D –Nominal Catholic 28% more D –Jewish 64% more D –Non-religious 18% more D

14. Religious voting

15. Vote choice by degree of religious commitment (white protestants)

16. Party identification A socialized, psychological attachment to a political party An information processing shortcut An information screen A predictor of vote choice

17. Party ID as predictor of vote choice for president

18. Strong partisans More likely to vote, be informed, and participate

19. Did you read a newspaper about the 2004 presidential election?

20. Did you vote in the 2004 presidential election?

21. Strong partisans More likely to vote, be informed, and participate Why? Better information processing Got somebody to root for

22. So how should a campaign activate strong partisans?

23. What do we know about independents?

24. Independents There are fewer of them than partisans

25. Partisanship

26. Independents There are fewer of them than partisans Many who say they are “independent” actually lean Leaners are fairly reliable party voters Some other “independents” are clueless Only about 10% of voters are true political independents

27. Of the Independents…

28. Percent of party identifiers voting for their party’s presidential candidate (Dems)

29. Percent of party identifiers voting for their party’s presidential candidate (Reeps)

30. Independents There are fewer of them than partisans Many who say they are “independent” actually lean Leaners are fairly reliable party voters True attitudinal independents less likely to be informed, vote, participate Behavioral independents / split ticketers do determine election outcomes

31. Behavioral independents, Dems

32. Behavioral independents, Reps

33. Other factors affecting vote choice

34. 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

35. Partisanship and approval of presidential job performance

36. Retrospective evaluations of George W. Bush and 2008 vote choice

37. Who among these voters should a campaign focus its energies on? Who should it ignore?