Targeted Issue Messages and Voting Behavior

• Author: Kyle Endres
• Published date: 01 March 2020
• Date: 01 March 2020
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X19875694
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673X19875694

American Politics Research

2020, Vol. 48(2) 317 –328

© The Author(s) 2019

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DOI: 10.1177/1532673X19875694

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Article

Modern campaigns use detailed information from state voter

files and data generated estimates of individuals’ policy

positions to guide their targeting strategies and messaging.

Armed with these policy predictions, campaigns can focus

their outreach on the particular issue that the data suggest

will be most effective at moving each individual to their side

by Election Day. Contrary to the narrative often promoted

by their data analytics teams and the media (e.g., Brennan,

2012), these estimates are not foolproof. When campaigns

narrowcast policy appeals, some people will be targeted

with a congruent issue in which their own position aligns

with the candidate’s position. Others will be inadvertently

targeted with an incongruent issue in which they and the

messaging candidate maintain different positions. Potential

gains accrued when the campaign targets individuals with

congruent issue me ssages could be offset when they target

others with incongruent issue messages. In this study, I eval-

uate turnout and vote choice when campaigns mistakenly

target registered voters with an incongruent issue message

and when campaigns target registered voters with a congru-

ent message to see whether, on balance, an issue-based tar-

geting strategy is effective. Using detailed contact records

from Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign, combined

with survey data and validated turnout records for two bat-

tleground states, I assess the relationship between narrowly

targeted issue messages and voting behavior.

Recent research in political science and elsewhere has

documented the rise in data analytics (Hersh, 2015; Hillygus

& Shields, 2008; Issenberg, 2013) but few have evaluated its

use in the context of an actual campaign. Data advancements

allow the campaign to focus its outreach on individuals who

are believed to share common ground with the candidate

based on estimates of their issue positions. These predictions

should facilitate mobilization and persuasion by allowing

campaigns to emphasize policy agreements to win support

from individuals who learn (or are reminded) that they agree

with the candidate on an issue (see Hillygus & Shields,

2008). In theory, this should be a successful strategy when

campaigns are contacting voters with shared issue messages.

However, narrowly targeting policy appeals is potentially

risky when they include divisive and polarizing topics, com-

monly referred to as “wedge” issues (Hillygus & Shields,

2008; Wiant, 2002), especially in light of the challenges

campaigns face forecasting where individuals positions

themselves on policy issues (Endres, 2016).1 When cam-

paigns rely on sometimes faulty policy predictions, some

individuals will encounter campaign content highlighting

issue(s) in which the recipient and the candidate share the

same position, and they may behave as theorized by voting

for the candidate who targeted them. Others will inevitably

875694APRXXX10.1177/1532673X19875694American Politics ResearchEndres

research-article2019

1Duke University, Durham, NC, USA

Corresponding Author:

Kyle Endres, Duke University, 140 Science Drive, Durham, NC 27708,

USA.

Email: kyle.endres@gmail.com

Targeted Issue Messages and Voting

Behavior

Kyle Endres1

Abstract

In today’s data-driven campaigns, presidential targeting strategies rely on detailed perceptions about the political leanings

and policy positions of Americans to decide which registered voters to contact and which messages to emphasize in their

outreach. However, identifying supporters and opponents of a candidate’s policy positions is far from foolproof. This reality

results in some citizens encountering political message(s) on congruent issues, where their issue stance aligns with the

messaging candidate, and others encountering incongruent issue message(s), where the candidate and message recipient

do not share the same position. Examining official contact records from the 2012 presidential campaign of Republican

Mitt Romney, I find evidence that Romney’s campaign had some success when targeting Democrats with congruent issues.

Messaging Democrats with an issue where they and Romney share common ground is associated with decreased support for

Obama, increased abstention, and increased support for Romney. Contacting Democrats with an incongruent message and

contacting Republicans with either an incongruent or congruent issue message had minimal effects on the voting behavior of

the recipient.

Keywords

campaigns, targeting, elections, abstention, persuasion