Does Class-Based Campaigning Work? How Working Class Appeals Attract and Polarize Voters

• Author: James Tilley,Rune Stubager,Mads Thau,Joshua Robison
• DOI: 10.1177/0010414020957684
• Published date: 01 April 2021
• Date: 01 April 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

957684CPSXXX10.1177/0010414020957684Comparative Political StudiesRobison et al.
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Comparative Political Studies
2021, Vol. 54(5) 723 –752
Does Class-Based
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Campaigning Work?
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How Working Class
https://doi.org/10.1177/0010414020957684
DOI: 10.1177/0010414020957684
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Appeals Attract and
Polarize Voters
Joshua Robison1 , Rune Stubager2,
Mads Thau3 , and James Tilley4
Abstract
Recent elections have featured various politicians directly appealing to the
working class, yet we know little about how citizens react to class appeals
from candidates. We investigate this question using survey experiments
conducted in the United States and Denmark. We show that symbolic
class rhetoric substantially influences candidate evaluations and ultimately
polarizes these evaluations across class lines. We also unpack how class
appeals work and find that while they increase perceptions of representation
among working class voters, they have a more limited effect on perceptions
of candidates’ ideological position. Our results help explain how class affects
voter decision-making and contribute to broader discussions about the role
of political elites in activating social cleavages.
Keywords
elections, public opinion, voting behavior, experimental research, political
psychology, political communication, social class
1Leiden University, Den Haag, Netherlands
2Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
3VIVE – The Danish Center for Social Science Research, Aarhus and Copenhagen, Denmark
4University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Corresponding Author:
Joshua Robison, Institute of Political Science, Leiden University, Turfmarkt 99, Den Haag
2511DC, Netherlands.
Email: j.a.robison@fsw.leidenuniv.nl

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Introduction
Social class was the dominant political cleavage in most industrialized societ-
ies for much of the 20th century and appeals to class constituencies, notably
appeals to the working class by leftist politicians, were a standard feature of
most elections. Nonetheless, election results became less dependent on the
shrinking working class as the millennium approached. Politicians, especially
those on the left, talked less about class in their campaign rhetoric and voting
behavior depolarized along class lines (Best, 2011; Evans & Tilley, 2017;
Thau, 2019). This led some to argue that class politics was dying if not dead
already (Beck & Beck-Gernsheim, 2002; Clark et al., 1993; Listhaug, 1997;
but see Bartels, 2016; Hout, 2008, and Piston, 2018 for a contrasting take).
Recent elections provide a reason to revisit the role of social class in can-
didate evaluations. On a number of occasions, high-profile politicians have
talked about class politics and appealed directly to the working class in their
campaign rhetoric. In the US, Senator Bernie Sanders characterized his run
for the Presidency as a “campaign of the working class, by the working class,
and for the working class” (Medina & Ember, 2020). In Britain, former
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn declared that Labour was “back as the political
voice of the working class” and would “put the interests of working-class
people center stage” (BBC, 2018). These examples are not particularly rare.
In fact, class rhetoric is still quite common among left-wing political elites in
the US, Britain, and Scandinavia (Horn et al., 2020; Rhodes & Johnson,
2017; Thau, 2019). Working class appeals also figure prominently in debates
concerning the success of right-wing populist politicians such as Marine Le
Pen in France, Luigi Di Maio in Italy, and Donald Trump in the US (Lamont
et al., 2017; Mutz, 2018; Rydgren, 2013). What effect does this type of rheto-
ric have on public evaluations of candidates?
Existing work does not provide direct evidence about this important ques-
tion. While there is a burgeoning literature about on the effects of group appeals
in campaign rhetoric, this work focuses primarily on gender, race, and religion,
not class (Hersh & Schaffner, 2013; Holman et al., 2015; Kam et al., 2017;
Ostfeld, 2019; Philpot, 2007; Swigger, 2012; Weber & Thornton, 2012).1
Likewise, recent work about how the class background of a candidate influences
voter preferences says little about whether politicians can effectively use appeals
to social classes and specifically the working class (Carnes & Lupu, 2016;
Carnes & Sadin, 2015; Evans & Tilley, 2017; Heath, 2015, 2018; Vivyan et al.,
2020). This impedes our understanding of electoral strategies as politicians can
strategically alter their campaign rhetoric, but not their social background.
We argue that candidates can shape voter perceptions through direct and
symbolic working class appeals. Specifically, we show that appeals to the

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Robison et al.
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working class attract working class voters and that this has the almost inevi-
table effect of increasing class polarization in voters’ candidate evaluations.
Our evidence comes from two studies (total N = 5,415). In Study 1, respon-
dents in both Denmark and the US were asked to evaluate either a candidate
who either made no appeal to any social class or a candidate who made a
policy-less symbolic appeal to the working class containing only an assertion
that it is time to ‘prioritize’ the working class over the upper middle class. We
find that such working class appeals substantially influenced subsequent can-
didate impressions in both countries. Working class voters rate candidates
more positively if they make an appeal to the working class, whereas upper
middle class voters barely react to such class rhetoric. The result is a polariza-
tion of perceptions across the class structure. In Study 2, we replicate this
initial finding in Denmark using a different dependent variable and examine
the relative influence of symbolic appeals to the working class compared to
policy statements. Here, we find that symbolic appeals are as effective as
policy-centered appeals. Finally, we use evidence from both studies to con-
sider why symbolic working class appeals influence impressions. We show
that symbolic appeals matter mainly due to their influence on perceptions of
candidates’ willingness to represent the group rather than their influence on
perceptions of candidates’ left-right policy positions.
We make three contributions. First, we extend the literature on group-
based campaign appeals concerning racial, gender, and religious groups by
expanding the focus to social class groups. Second, we provide stronger
causal evidence for the role of political elites in structuring the relationship
between social class and vote choice, thereby going beyond studies using
observational data (Evans & Tilley, 2012a, 2012b, 2017; Thau, 2020). Third,
we identify a novel way through which symbolic group appeals work: per-
ceptions of group representation. We thus also contribute to the broader lit-
erature on group cleavages in voting behavior by emphasizing the role of
political elites in cultivating group polarization (Achen & Bartels, 2016).
Symbolic Group Appeals
Politicians frequently appeal to social groups. Recent studies on political
rhetoric in the US, Britain, and the Scandinavian countries report that party
manifestos, political speeches, and campaign advertisements are, to a sub-
stantial degree, dedicated to group appeals (Elder & Phillips, 2017; Evans
& Tilley, 2017; Horn et al., 2020; Nteta & Schaffner, 2013; Rhodes &
Johnson, 2017; Thau, 2018). Our primary concern is with the effect of sym-
bolic group appeals on subsequent voter preferences. By symbolic appeals,
we mean a political communication in which a politician casts themselves

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Comparative Political Studies 54(5)
as an ally of some social group but absent much, if any, elaboration of
policy. Consider two real examples of direct mail candidate communica-
tions cited by Hersh and Schaffner (2013, pp. 524–525): “A Voice for
Working America” and “Standing up for Maine’s Working Families.” In
neither case does the message convey what this “voice” will say on behalf
of working Americans or what the politician “stands” for. Symbolic appeals
of this sort may be particularly attractive to politicians insofar as they
enable them to communicate information that bolsters their electoral for-
tunes, while also avoiding alienating voters by maintaining ambiguity
about policy positions (Dickson & Scheve, 2006; but see, Hersh &
Schaffner, 2013). Although candidates also appeal to groups via policy
statements, a focus on symbolic appeals provides a direct window on the
effect of specifically appealing to a social group.2
Although politicians make symbolic appeals to groups in their campaign
rhetoric, our knowledge regarding the influence of these appeals is still lim-
ited in at least three important respects and particularly so when it concerns
class-based appeals. First, existing work has primarily explored the preva-
lence of class-based appeals rather than their influence (Evans & Tilley,
2017; Rhodes & Johnson, 2017; Thau, 2019). Second, we know little about
how such appeals compare to the traditional ‘currency’ of the political mar-
ket, that is, appeals explicitly focused on policy (Kitschelt, 2011, p. 620; but
see, Thau, 2020). Are they more or less effective? Prior studies on targeted
group appeals in campaign rhetoric typically randomize the presence or
absence of a group appeal but do not separately...