Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2019
Publication Title
Social Science Quarterly
Abstract
Objective. This study advances the presidential primary literature in two ways. First, since many studies in this literature advocate for more detailed theoretical development, we incorporate an interdisciplinary approach by utilizing social contagion theory from the field of sociology. Second, presidential primaries do not adequately explore what role the public plays during the invisible primary. We thus incorporate Google Trends data into presidential primary models to account for the relative amount of public attention for each presidential primary candidate. Methods. We use fixed effects regression to determine the impact of public attention on a candidate’s share of the contested primary vote (CPV). Results. We find that increased public attention leads to higher levels of support for a candidate in the Iowa caucuses, New Hampshire primary, and CPV. Conclusion. These findings illustrate the extra-voting role the public plays in presidential primary elections and helps us further distinguish how party elites, voters, and candidates uniquely determine the selection of our executive.
Recommended Citation
Swearingen, Colin D.; Stiles, Elizabeth A.; and Finneran*, Kate, "Here’s Looking at You: Public- Versus Elite-Driven Models of Presidential Primary Elections" (2019). 2019 Faculty Bibliography. 27.
https://collected.jcu.edu/fac_bib_2019/27
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Comments
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