Electoral Effects of News Stories on Judicial Candidates

• In Event: Courts and Judges in the News and ‘New’ Media

Abstract

What types of stories pique voter interest in judicial elections? Are voters more drawn to soft news stories than hard news stories about state supreme court justices? To investigate this question, this study looks at two types of justice-related news stories: On-the-bench stories are hard news stories that pertain to particular court cases while off-the-bench stories are soft news stories pertain to a justice’s activities outside the court. Given what scholars know about low-information media landscape of judicial election campaigns, this study argues that on-the-bench stories engages and captures the attention of voters while off-the-bench stories do not. To investigate this question, I conduct survey experiments in three states with different judicial selection methods and an observational study using Google Trends.

The first study is composed of three survey experiments fielded in North Carolina, Michigan, and Missouri, which held partisan, nonpartisan, and retention judicial elections in the November 3, 2020 general election, respectively. The survey gauges the respondents’ level of interest in the candidates and whether they would like to learn more about the candidate. Preliminary results indicate that, compared to the control group, respondents are in fact more interested in the judicial candidate if they have been exposed to off-the-bench stories and are less interested in the candidate if they have been exposed to on-the-bench stories.

The second study assesses the external validity of the first study. To do so, I conduct an observational study that examines whether the number of on-the-bench and off-the-bench news stories about justices running for reelection influence people’s interest in the justice. I measure interest in two ways. First, I look at whether the type of news stories about the justice motivate search queries for the justice on Google. Second, I look at whether the type of news stories about the justice prevent ballot roll-off in the election. Using LexisNexis, Google Trends, and state election results data, I look at whether the media environment in low-information elections encourage interest in state supreme court elections in particular. Preliminary results show that the proliferation of off-the-bench news stories does result in less ballot roll-off in judicial elections.

In recent years, the notion that state and local elections are just as important as national elections has been rivaled by scant media coverage. Despite their newfound importance, many local elections continue to be considered as low-information elections. This project aims to identify what kind of media coverage is effective in state supreme court elections and in low-information elections more broadly.

Author

• Marcy Shieh, University of Wisconsin-Madison