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In this paper, we examine the ways in which citizens emotionally react to and cognitively process campaign advertisements that contain group-based appeals. Specifically, we focus on the emotional, cognitive, and persuasive effects of three campaign ads aired during the 2012 election campaign that contained explicit appeals to women voters. We analyze differences across women and men in their emotional responses to the ads, in their reports of the memorability of the ads, in their cognitive engagement with the ads, and in how persuasive the ads were for vote choice. In so doing, we add nuance to studies of gender and campaigns and contribute to the expanding literature on the impact of strategic campaign communications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how multivocal appeals, meaning appeals that have distinct meanings to different audiences, work with respect to religious language. Religious language is common in politics, but there is great variation in its effectiveness. I argue that multivocal appeals can resonate as religious with select audiences but have no religious content for other listeners. I test the effectiveness of multivocal and obvious religious appeals experimentally with two national samples: an ingroup that understands the religious connotations in a multivocal appeal and a religiously diverse outgroup that does not. Religious appeals are persuasive for the ingroup, but an obvious religious appeal can be politically costly by triggering negative reactions among outgroup members, while the religious meaning in a multivocal appeal eludes them. Obvious religious appeals are costly in the diverse audience because of different preferences over the appropriate role for religion in political speech. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The tendency for lukewarm partisans to 'come home' is generally regarded as the chief dynamic of presidential campaigns, but little is known about what draws these voters closer to their party's candidate. The pattern is often taken as prima facie evidence that campaigns activate partisanship, but there is little direct evidence that party identification ( PID) exerts any greater influence on candidate preference late in the campaign than it had earlier. This study uses panel surveys from two elections to uncover the mechanisms that lead partisans home. It demonstrates that past research focused on the fall campaign has missed evidence for activation of PID, which occurs as the primary phase closes. It also demonstrates that under certain conditions activation of ideology plays just as important a role in bringing partisans home as activation of PID. These findings indicate that the process whereby partisans 'come home' is multi-faceted and may have nearly as much to do with ideology as with party loyalty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]