This Article Full Text (PDF) References Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Email this article to a friend Similar articles in this journal Alert me to new issues of the journal Add to Saved Citations Download to citation manager Request Permissions Request Reprints Add to My Marked Citations Citing Articles Citing Articles via Google Scholar Citing Articles via Scopus Google Scholar Articles by Kenny, C. Articles by McBurnett, M. Search for Related Content Social Bookmarking                         What's this?

Up Close and Personal: Campaign Contact and Candidate Spending in U.S. House Elections

LOUISIANA STATE UNIVERSITY

Michael McBurnett

ILLINOIS POWER COMPANY

Very little evidence exists on which forms of voter contact have the greatest impact on election outcomes. In this article we attempt to assess systemati cally the effect of different forms of voter contact on congressional vote choice. By estimating a system of equations for spending and vote choice with three different forms of personal and media contact we are able to investigate how different forms of contact directly affect the vote choice as well as mediate the impact of candidate spending. We find that incum bents and challengers benefit differently from the different forms of con tact. Challengers tend to get a bigger direct effect from contact in general probably because as a group they are less well known than incumbents. Incumbents, on the other hand, seem able to use contact through the me dia to maintain their advantage. Contact through television enhances the effect of spending to a much greater extent than is true for challengers, suggesting that incumbents who reach a large percentage of the electorate are difficult to beat.

Political Research Quarterly, Vol. 50, No. 1, 75-96 (1997)
DOI: 10.1177/106591299705000104


CiteULike    Complore    Connotea    Del.icio.us    Digg    Reddit    Technorati    Twitter    What's this?