Assessing the Value of Influence to Voters: Evidence from a Survey Experiment

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Abstract

Given that political influence is central to affecting policy outcomes, how do voters account for incumbents’ level of this quality when deciding how to vote? Political power, like any other candidate attribute, such as party, race, or gender, signals a connotation to voters -- “correctly” or otherwise (Lau & Redlawsk, 1997) -- about that candidate’s ability to affect policy changes in their preferred direction. However, this attribute primarily benefits political elites themselves; specifically, influence serves as a more accurate heuristic to similarly informed others in intra-legislative settings. Put differently, legislators look to the most influential one among their peers to serve as a cue-giver in otherwise low-information settings (Kingdon, 1973; Matthews & Stimson, 1975), while voters lack the context to utilize such nuanced candidate information. This paper examines the role of influence from the perspective of constituents with two survey experiments. First, using a conjoint design, I test whether politically influential candidates are perceived more positively than others. Here, respondents are presented with two hypothetical candidate profiles in which influence along with five additional traits are randomly varied. This test shows the independent contribution of influence to voters' evaluations of candidates relative to other traits, such as party, gender, and race. An additional experiment puts influence into a tradeoff context to determine respondents' representational preferences. In short, influence requires credibility and professional rapport, which must be maintained through consistent, highly visible activity. As a result, these legislators may be less able to provide certain types of representation, such as constituency service, which necessitate spending more time in the district and less time at the capitol.

Author

• Hannah Wilson, University of Notre Dame