Lost in the Crowd: The Effect of Volatile Fields on Presidential Primaries

• Date: 01 March 2021
• Author: Zachary Scott
• Published date: 01 March 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/1532673X20959618
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X20959618

American Politics Research

2021, Vol. 49(2) 221 –232

© The Author(s) 2020

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/1532673X20959618

journals.sagepub.com/home/apr

Article

“Imagine a sport where you spend 1 year [hopping] on one leg

and not using the other, then suddenly having to run a marathon.1”

– Zach Weinersmith, cartoonist

Presidential primaries are radically different from the gen-

eral elections that follow. They are long, sequential contests

in which candidates often jump in the race nearly a year

before the first in a concatenation of caucuses and primaries.

They are multicandidate, leading to volatility in the field as

candidates hop in and out of the race. They are intraparty,

removing the party moniker cue and often featuring candi-

dates with similar issue positions. And the electorate is radi-

cally different in size and political interest.

But there is one important consistency between presiden-

tial primaries and general elections. They are both oriented

primarily through the media (Azari, 2016; Polsby, 1983).

From the candidates’ perspective, media-centric primaries

are essential in the post-reform era as they are the most cost-

and time-efficient means of contacting a large base of poten-

tial supporters across the country. Voters are also advantaged

by the media-centric primary system as it helps organize a

regularly chaotic process that would otherwise be time-

consuming to comprehend. The media serves as a conduit

between the candidates’ desire to cheaply reach a broad

audience and voters’ preference to learn about politics in as

efficient a manner as possible.

And yet the media does not operate to maximize the util-

ity of candidates or voters. The media has its own incentive

structures and preferences that affect coverage (Zaller, 1999).

While we know how those preferences shape coverage in

concert with the electoral structure of general elections (e.g.,

Hayes, 2010; Vavreck, 2009), we don’t yet know how the

structure of American presidential primary races affects how

the media covers primaries. Obtaining such knowledge is

important because the agenda-setting literature (McCombs

& Shaw, 1972) suggests that what the media covers affects

public opinion, because candidates actively seek to convey

agendas through the media, and because parties should want

to ensure that the candidate who emerges from this process is

well positioned for the general election.

This paper seeks to explain the relationship between the

structure of primaries and media coverage, specifically in

terms of what issues the media talks about, via a theory of

journalism norms. Journalists are socialized via their profes-

sion into prioritizing certain traits in potential news stories.

These traits include timeliness and simplicity.

I argue that the structure of the primary system should lead

to variation in the timeliness and simplicity journalists per-

ceive in the race. Given how long primaries are, reporters

closely following each campaign should gradually find candi-

dates’ messages less timely as their talking points and stump

speeches become old news. The multicandidate attribute of

959618APRXXX10.1177/1532673X20959618American Politics ResearchScott

research-article2020

1Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, PA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Zachary Scott, Bryn Mawr College, 101 North Merion Ave, Bryn Mawr,

PA 19010-2859, USA.

Email: zscott@brynmawr.edu

Lost in the Crowd: The Effect of Volatile

Fields on Presidential Primaries

Zachary Scott1

Abstract

All candidates attempt to convey agendas through the media, but presidential primary contenders face distinctive conditions.

Do these conditions affect candidates’ ability to transmit their agendas through the media? Drawing on theories of journalism

norms, I argue that media responsiveness to a candidate’s agenda will, on average, decrease as the primary campaign goes on

and candidates’ messages become less timely. Expansions in the size of the field should create more complicated electoral

races, leading to declining contextual simplicity and less overlap between candidate and media agendas. I test these hypotheses

using a novel dataset of primary candidates’ speeches and news articles about those candidates. I show that the entrance of

new candidates is correlated with a decline in convergence. Contrary to expectations, there is no decline in convergence

over time. The results have implications for how nomination contests should be structured in the era of media-oriented

campaigns.

Keywords

primaries, campaigns and elections, mass media, agenda building, journalism norms