Mobilization with Issue- and Identity-Specific Messages

• In Event: Shaping Climate Change Beliefs: Messaging and Measurement

Abstract

Applying social pressure to comply with commonly held values effectively mobilizes American voters, but campaigners now have access to data that could enable more tailored approaches. Specifically, concrete, issue-specific concerns or identity cues could mobilize voters. Issue-focused messages could have the additional benefit of alleviating inequities in democratic participation. Here, I examine issue concerns and identity as levers for voter mobilization, using field experiments conducted in the run-up to the 2020 US presidential election and the 2022 midterm election in collaboration with a faith-based NGO. Our study population is registered voters in three states, who are likely to be alarmed about climate change and members of a faith community. We randomly assigned individuals from this population into a control group which received no communication and treatment groups which received variations of a get-out-the-vote (GOTV) appeal focused on climate change and/ or faith-based identities. We use voter turnout data to examine the effectiveness of the campaign’s climate and faith-oriented GOTV appeals. The results provide evidence about whether targeting issue publics can help reduce the participation gap that general-public GOTV efforts may unwittingly exacerbate.

Author

• Parrish Bergquist, University of Pennsylvania