All in the Family: The Use of Candidate’s Children in Campaign Advertisements

• In Event: This Note's For You: Campaign Advertising Effects and Affordances

Abstract

More and more parents are running for office while they still have children living at home. The 2018 Freshman class in Congress included a record number of working moms, and previous research shows that parenthood influences the legislative agenda of both mothers and fathers (Bryant and Hellwege 2018), but does it also affect the way they present themselves while running for office? Are mothers and fathers equally likely to feature their children in ads? Are children used to make candidates seem more down to earth and relatable, or are they used to exude authority and leadership?

Using content analysis, this paper explores the extent to which parents feature their children in their campaign ads, and examines gender, generational, and partisan differences in how children are portrayed. It is expected that women and men may choose to feature their children differently. Previous research shows that women have historically been criticized for running while having younger children at home to a greater extent than men (Dolan 2010; Fox and Lawless 2010) and have often postponed running for office until their children are grown (Fowler and McClure 1989). This may cause women to be less likely to put their children front and center in their campaigns. Men, on the other hand, maybe expected to have families and be more likely to feature them prominently in ads. Research will be conducted using television and online ads for all 435 House candidates for the 2016 and 2018 election cycles.

Authors

• Lisa A. Bryant, California State University, Fresno

• Wes Wise, California State University, Fresno