Persuadable Voter

D. Sunshine Hillygus is the Frederick S. Danziger Associate Professor of Government and director of the Program on Survey Research at Harvard University. Todd G. Shields is professor of political science at the University of Arkansas and director of the Diane D. Blair Center for Southern Politics and Society.

Winner of the 2009 Robert E. Lane Award for the Best Book in Political Psychology in 2008, Political Psychology Section of the American Political Science Association "[P]ath-breaking... The authors' novel approach to identifying both persuadable voters and effective micro-targeting techniques provides the most powerful evidence for their argument. The Persuadable Voter reminds us that, overall, the outcome of elections and the face of politics hinge on the ability of parties, candidates, and voters to adapt to each other and to the changing nature of political appeals."--David A. M. Peterson, Science "In their outstanding study, Hillygus and Shields take what appears to be a singular topic--how wedge issues affect presidential campaigns--and fully develop a theoretical and empirical analysis of presidential campaigns, voting behavior, electoral strategies, and message framing... This work alone should expand the field of research on campaigns, elections, and voter behavior to new areas."--J. Michael Bitzer, Choice "The Persuadable Voter is clearly a well researched book, with sound arguments and complex methodologies to back these arguments up."--Mark Rice, In-Spire, Journal of Law, Politics and Societies "Written in an accessible style, The Persuadable Voter is an engaging reading, especially distinguishing itself in clarity and the high currency of the themes examined. It is certain to benefit the general public as well as a specialized audience, political and social scientists, journalists and politicians alike."--Adriana-Cecilia Neagu, ABC Journal "The Persuadable Voter should prove a cornerstone of contemporary scholarship about campaigns. The theory of wedge politics is compelling no matter how difficult it may be to encourage partisans to defect in today's polarized politics. Hillygus and Shields have established cross-pressures as a crucial factor that moderates the effects of campaigns, and their empirical findings constitute striking evidence of such effects. Finally, the book itself is a model for how to present statistical analysis clearly, to mingle social science with lively anecdotes, and to challenge lazy conventional wisdom in provocative ways. It deserves to be read by academics and political practitioners alike."--John Sides, Public Opinion Quarterly "Buell and Sigelman provide a crucial foundation for future work, as it is rich description of the type presented in this book that allows scholars to derive more general hypotheses."--Yanna Krupnikov, Perspectives on Politics

• List of Illustrations ix List of Tables xi Acknowledgments xiii Chapter One: Wedge Issues in Presidential Campaigns 1 Chapter Two: The Reciprocal Campaign 18 Chapter Three: Measuring the Persuadable Partisan 49 Chapter Four: Capturing Campaign Persuasion 82 Chapter Five: The Republican Southern Strategy: A Case Study of the Reciprocal Campaign 107 Chapter Six: Candidate Strategy in the 2004 Campaign 145 Chapter Seven: Conclusions: Consequences for Democratic Governance 183 Appendix 1: Question Wording and Coding 205 Appendix 2: Content Analysis Coding 214 Appendix 3: Statistical Results 216 Bibliography 223 Index 237