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Reformers argue that public financing of campaigns will help rescue American democracy from the corruptive influence of money in elections. Public Financing in American Elections evaluates this claim and aims to remove much of the guesswork from the discussion about public finance. Featuring some of the most senior scholars in political science and electoral studies, this book provides an up-to-date treatment of campaign finance research and thinking about public campaign financing reforms. Exploring proposals at the local, state, and federal levels, the contributors provide a comprehensive overview of public financing initiatives in the United States and discuss their impact. Focused analyses of several current public programs are also presented

Reformers argue that public financing of campaigns will help rescue American democracy from the corruptive influence of money in elections. Public Financing in American Elections evaluates this claim and aims to remove much of the guesswork from the discussion about public finance. Featuring some of the most senior scholars in political science and electoral studies, this book provides an up-to-date treatment of campaign finance research and thinking about public campaign financing reforms. Exploring proposals at the local, state, and federal levels, the contributors provide a comprehensive overview of public financing initiatives in the United States and discuss their impact. Focused analyses of several current public programs are also presented.

Explicit social pressure has been shown to be a powerful motivator of prosocial behavior-like voting in elections. In this study, I report the findings of a randomized field experiment designed to study the impact of more subtle, implicit social-pressure treatments. The results of the experiment, conducted in the October 2011 municipal elections in Key West, Florida, demonstrate that even subtle, implicit observability cues can effectively mobilize citizens to vote, perhaps as much as explicit surveillance cues. The findings speak more broadly to our understanding of human decision making, and even evolution, and provide fodder for the claim that humans are evolutionarily programmed to respond to certain stimuli. I interpret the evidence to support the notion that evolutionarily charged impulses, like exposure to images that implicitly signal the potential for surveillance and observability, are sufficient to overcome powerful collective action incentives to free ride. Adapted from the source document.

AbstractThe vote intentions of Americans experienced meaningful change over the course of the 2014 campaign, largely to the detriment of Democrats and in favor of the GOP. Vote intention trajectories generally followed sensible and predictable patterns, reflecting forces and developments that unfolded over the course of the campaign cycle. Specifically, changes in voter sentiments were fueled primarily by assessments about the president and, relatedly, about the condition of the national economy. Higher levels of Obama approval helped Democratic contenders over the course of the 2014 midterm cycle, while Republicans appeared to benefit from improvements in the economy. Political events and assessments of congressional performance were unrelated to vote intentions in 2014.

Explicit social pressure has been shown to be a powerful motivator of prosocial behavior‐like voting in elections. In this study, I report the findings of a randomized field experiment designed to study the impact of more subtle, implicit social‐pressure treatments. The results of the experiment, conducted in the October 2011 municipal elections in Key West, Florida, demonstrate that even subtle, implicit observability cues can effectively mobilize citizens to vote, perhaps as much as explicit surveillance cues. The findings speak more broadly to our understanding of human decision making, and even evolution, and provide fodder for the claim that humans are evolutionarily programmed to respond to certain stimuli. I interpret the evidence to support the notion that evolutionarily charged impulses, like exposure to images that implicitly signal the potential for surveillance and observability, are sufficient to overcome powerful collective action incentives to free ride.

Does campaign duration affect election outcomes? To date, this question has largely evaded political scientists, but it is reasonable to expect systematic links between campaign length and candidate performance in elections. We hypothesize that longer campaigns would help challengers' electoral fortunes, thereby curbing incumbency advantage and potentially boosting competitiveness in elections. Using two data sources, aggregate data from U.S. House elections between 1994 and 2006 and ANES survey data from the 2002 election cycle, we find little evidence to support contentions that campaign length affects election outcomes or candidate familiarity. The results we report suggest the political consequences, intended or not, to choices about election timing are likely minimal.

Political scientists are increasingly exploring the psychological underpinnings of voting behavior using field experimental techniques. Research in psychology demonstrates that positive reinforcement—what I describe as positive social pressure—motivates prosocial behavior. A distinctive feature of the current study is the focus on key subgroups of voters, namely unmarried women and minorities. Attention to these voter subgroups allows us to build upon findings reported in previous studies that leave questions about the generalizability of the reported effects of positive social pressure to key demographic subgroups of voters largely unanswered. This article reports the results of a large‐scale randomized field experiment designed to investigate the impact of positive social pressure on voter turnout. The experiment was conducted during the November 2009 gubernatorial election in New Jersey, and the results suggest positive social pressure mobilizes voters. Moreover, the effects appear to be robust across subgroups of voters, including minorities and unmarried women, and both lower‐ and higher‐propensity voters.

Does campaign duration affect election outcomes? To date, this question has largely evaded political scientists, but it is reasonable to expect systematic links between campaign length and candidate performance in elections. We hypothesize that longer campaigns would help challengers' electoral fortunes, thereby curbing incumbency advantage and potentially boosting competitiveness in elections. Using two data sources, aggregate data from U.S. House elections between 1994 and 2006 and ANES survey data from the 2002 election cycle, we find little evidence to support contentions that campaign length affects election outcomes or candidate familiarity. The results we report suggest the political consequences, intended or not, to choices about election timing are likely minimal.