No One Wants to Back a Loser: The Strategic Considerations of Endorsements

• In Event: Voting in Primaries

Abstract

The 2020 Democratic primary paired the largest (and longest) contestation for the nomination in history with a nomination that was essentially settled after the first few primaries and a series of high profile endorsements for Joe Biden, the eventual nominee. Despite the common belief that endorsements can be impactful not just symbolically but for the signal that they send to potential voters, and that candidates for various positions actively seek out nominations for the potential boost in support that they may provide, there has not been a systematic analysis of the potential strategic rationales of the individual making the sought after endorsement. We start to resolve this gap through the use of a novel dataset of 6,761 endorsements from local, state, and national political leaders, activists, and private citizens, in order to test several theories of why endorsements happen when they do and what types of candidates attract certain types of endorsements. This dataset allows us to test whether particular types of endorsers are more likely to endorse candidates closer to their interests, more likely to be elected, or some combination of the two. It also allows us to examine the timing of endorsements, early or late, and the subsequent choices made by endorsers when their first chosen candidate drops out. This paper thus starts to fill in the gaps in the endorsement literature by presenting several potential strategic rationales for endorsements before testing the impact of those strategies in different contexts, candidates, and points in the presidential nominating process.

Authors

• Regina Wagner, University of Alabama

• Elizabeth Sawyer, University of Wisconsin-Madison