Clarke, Harold D and Kornberg, Allan and Scotto, Thomas J and Reifler, Jason and Sanders, David and Stewart, Marianne C and Whiteley, Paul (2011) Yes we can! Valence politics and electoral choice in America, 2008. Electoral Studies, 30 (3). pp. 450-461. DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2010.11.013
Clarke, Harold D and Kornberg, Allan and Scotto, Thomas J and Reifler, Jason and Sanders, David and Stewart, Marianne C and Whiteley, Paul (2011) Yes we can! Valence politics and electoral choice in America, 2008. Electoral Studies, 30 (3). pp. 450-461. DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2010.11.013
Clarke, Harold D and Kornberg, Allan and Scotto, Thomas J and Reifler, Jason and Sanders, David and Stewart, Marianne C and Whiteley, Paul (2011) Yes we can! Valence politics and electoral choice in America, 2008. Electoral Studies, 30 (3). pp. 450-461. DOI https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2010.11.013
Abstract
The claim that the 2008 presidential election was a transformative one is fast becoming part of the conventional wisdom of American politics. Despite the election's undoubted significance, this paper argues that factors affecting voting decisions were strikingly similar to those operating in many previous presidential elections. Using data from the CCAP six-wave national election survey, we demonstrate that a valence politics model provides a powerful, parsimonious explanation of the ballot decisions Americans made in 2008. As is typical in presidential elections, candidate images had major effects on electoral choice. Controlling for several other relevant factors, racial attitudes were strongly associated with how voters reacted to the candidates. Other models of electoral choice, such as a Downsian issue-proximity model, are also relevant, but their explanatory power is considerably less than that provided by the valence politics model. © 2010 Elsevier Ltd.
Item Type: | Article |
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Uncontrolled Keywords: | Economic crisis; Valence issues; Leader images; Partisan change; Racial attitudes |
Subjects: | J Political Science > JA Political science (General) |
Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences Faculty of Social Sciences > Government, Department of |
SWORD Depositor: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Depositing User: | Unnamed user with email elements@essex.ac.uk |
Date Deposited: | 14 Sep 2013 01:35 |
Last Modified: | 30 Oct 2024 17:01 |
URI: | http://repository.essex.ac.uk/id/eprint/7662 |