The Party Replies: Examining Local Party Responsiveness to Prospective Campaign Volunteers

• Published date: 01 June 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129221119751
• Author: A Lee Hannah,Kevin Reuning,Anne Whitesell
• Date: 01 June 2023

Article

Political Research Quarterly

2023, Vol. 76(2) 931–943

© The Author(s) 2022

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129221119751

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The Party Replies: Examining Local Party

Responsiveness to Prospective Campaign

Volunteers

A Lee Hannah

1

, Kevin Reuning

2

, and Anne Whitesell

2



Abstract

We examine the role that local parties play in responding to and equipping local volunteers to work during campaign

seasons. We use a f‌ield experiment during the 2020 U.S. general election to investigate whether local parties are more

likely to respond to certain types of volunteers and to examine what factors are associated with local parties’re-

sponsiveness. We f‌ind that both Democratic and Republican local parties in competitive counties are more likely to

respond to volunteers. Moreover, we f‌ind that both parties are more likely to respond to white volunt eers and

Democratic parties are more likely to respond to women. These differential response rates may be contributing to the

increased demographic sorting between the parties.

Keywords

political parties, representation and electoral systems, American politics, political participation

Introduction

Party organizations fulf‌ill a critical role in American

politics. They recruit candidates to run for public off‌ice,

connect voters to elected off‌icials at all levels of gov-

ernment, propose policy platforms and model legislation,

and more. At the local level, parties provide solidary and

purposive benef‌its to citizens by encouraging them to

become politically active and provide state and national

parties with important insights about local public opinion

(Clark 2004). Central to this paper is the role local parties

play in affecting the makeup of the electorate. Findings

from get-out-the-vote (GOTV) f‌ield experiments consis-

tently document the importance of interpersonal contact

with party off‌icials (Gerber and Green 2000;Green,

Berger, and Nickerson 2003;Jacobson 2015) and can-

vassing by local citizens (Sinclair, McConnell, and

Michelson 2013) to voter turnout. In this way, the

maintenance and strengthening of local parties should be a

priority for political parties that wish to win elections and

ultimately get preferred legislation passed.

Yet even local party leaders who wish to grow their

membership may also have incentives to include or ex-

clude some groups. Local parties may take an exclusive

approach if they think their electoral fortunes depend on

appealing to moderate voters in the area (Downs 1957),

fearing too many members that they perceive to be

demographically or ideologically unrepresentative (Enos

and Hersh 2015). For example, Doherty, Dowling, and

Miller (2019) found that county party chairs from both

parties viewed Latinx and Black candidates as less likely

to win state legislative races. At the same time, partisan

activists are not representative of the median voter and

local party chairs (almost all volunteers) are more likely to

ref‌lect the characteristics of “intense policy demanders”

than the characteristics of a typical local citizen (Bawn

et al. 2012;Hassell Hans et al., 2020). In such cases, party

leaders may seek out members who are demographically

or ideologically similar (Wojcik 2018).

At the same time, all local parties face constraints on

limited resources, and the ability to recruit and train new

volunteers may be a function of organizational capacity.

Local parties are tasked with important organizational

tasks, such as participating in party meetings, supporting

candidates, and registering voters (Clark et al. 1998;

Feigert and Todd 1998). Local party organizations with

1

Wright State University, Dayton, OH, USA

2

Miami University, Oxford, OH, USA

Corresponding Author:

Lee Hannah, Wright State University, 3640 Colonel Glenn Hwy, Dayton,

OH 45435, USA.

Email: Lee.hannah@wright.edu