The Choices Gubernatorial Candidates Make: Do Visits Lead to Votes?

• In Event: Campaigns, Elections, Voting Behavior

Abstract

Each year, candidates for public office spend a large amount of their time crisscrossing their district or state on the hunt for votes. They march in parades, visit local festivals, and make a point to be seen at coffee shops and diners. These stops are intended to boost their profile with voter—with the ultimate goal of winning the general election. However, the extant literature on this topic is largely driven by studies of presidential politics and the relatively limited number of campaign stops that candidates make during the primary and general election. We test the relationship between where candidates travel and the votes they receive using a more abundant source, state governors.

Using social media during the 2018 gubernatorial elections, we compiled an original dataset that tracks the counties that gubernatorial candidates visited over the course of the election cycle in 16 states. The number of stops each candidate made per county can be compared to their later share of the two-party vote. Our results show that across multiple states these stops increased support for candidates relative to their opposition. This has important implications for the nature of political campaigns and how candidates seek to best use their resources on the campaign trail.

Authors

• Ryan E Voris, Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College

• Austin Trantham, Saint Leo University