TITLE:
Asymmetric Partisan and Ideological Evaluations from Candidate Repositioning: A Randomized Experiment
AUTHORS:
Andrew Gooch
KEYWORDS:
Experiment, Repositioning, Voting Behavior, Immigration Policy
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Political Science,
Vol.13 No.2,
April
27,
2023
ABSTRACT: This paper explores partisan
and ideological differences in evaluations of a hypothetical candidate who
repositions after a campaign (aka “flip-flopping”). This study uses a
survey experiment with three randomized conditions and a sample of 1338
respondents. The analysis includes average treatment effects and results by 1)
a respondent’s party identification and 2) a respondent’s preferred immigration
policy position. I show that a candidate (without partisan or ideological
labels) who repositions from a liberal immigration policy to the status quo conservative
position is drastically penalized in terms of favorability, particularly by
Democratic and liberal respondents. However, respondents who supported a
conservative policy only modestly rewarded the candidate with higher
favorability ratings for repositioning. Drastic differences also existed in
ideological evaluations. Democratic and liberal respondents viewed the
candidate as more conservative than respondents who are Republican or
conservative. These results suggest that conservative respondents used the
initial, liberal campaign position to form a strong prior when evaluating the
candidate; whereas, liberal respondents were more sensitive to the conservative
reposition.