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This paper examines the function of gender in print political advertisements distributed during two 2002 US Senate races involving women candidates. In addition to examining the ads produced by the candidates, this paper also analyzes gender messages in the ads distributed by political parties and interest groups involved in the races. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent GOTV experiments suggest that the decision to vote involves an intertemporal trade-off. Whereas the transaction costs of voting are incurred on or before Election Day, its expressive benefits are realized in the future. In this article, I draw on a vast literature in psychology and economics to propose a model and a measure of time discounting in political behavior. The ability to delay gratification predicts a myriad of desirable outcomes, including voter turnout. My model posits that it enhances the effects of political stimuli such as social norms when the rewards are deferred. As a result, more patient individuals are more likely to vote, and to lie afterwards if they do not vote. In the empirical analysis, I use an incentivized measure from a representative US panel (N=3,027). My results show that the effect of patience on self-reported turnout is robust to demographic controls, risk aversion, and measurement error. I leverage novel estimation techniques to demonstrate that monetary delay-discounting experiments provide reliable elicitations of time preferences that map onto political behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

How do people decide to turn out? More specifically, does the distance from a polling location increase or decrease their likelihood of voting? This central question guides the research I propose. Consistent with early work by Downs (1957), surveys indicate that the act of voting is not neutral; individuals must reallocate time from working, family, or leisure and exert energy to travel to a polling location, stand in line, cast a ballot, and proceed to the next destination. This process can inhibit the ability of some individuals to vote, implying that physical resources, in part, determine their likelihood of voting. Haspel and Knotts (2005) provide an excellent study addressing the effect of geographic distance on turnout in the Atlanta area during mayoral races. In this paper, I propose to expand on this work by examining voter roll information for much of the state of Mississippi, across several national and sub-national elections. These data allow for further heterogeneity in group characteristics to be explored, and indicate any change in turnout that may occur due to the type of election being held. Second, this paper will incorporate not only the distance that an individual lives away from their polling place, but the distance that they travel to work, including several other mitigating factors. This paper will further assess the impact of distance on voting and go beyond current studies to create more robust findings. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The lack of competition that plagues elections in the United States at all levels of government has been both widely lamented and widely studied. Yet, given the strategic advantages electoral incumbents enjoy, it is not surprising that they are frequently able to skate through an election unopposed or with only token opposition. One aspect of the candidate emergence process that has been largely overlooked up to this point, however, are the effects certain electoral laws, such as ballot access requirements and public funding of candidates, have on candidate emergence. Following the "strategic politicians" model of candidate entry (Black 1972; Jacobson and Kernell 1981), we propose that such electoral laws are properly considered part of the cost ("C") term in the standard decision-making calculus of potential candidates. Specifically, ballot access requirements add to the costs a potential candidate faces, while public funding of candidates has the ability to alleviate some of the costs associated with becoming a candidate. Using gubernatorial election data from 1980-2005, we empirically test whether ballot access (both petition and filing fee) requirements and public funding of candidates have these proposed effects on the candidate emergence process. The results provide mixed support for our claims. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article highlights the disparate causes of inflated survey reports of political participation in the U.S. It uses various National Election Study (NES) data to provide an assessment of the magnitude of the various effect that result in survey overestimates. It discusses several different source of non-random error which affect the estimates of voting participation of NES.

Decades of research suggests that campaign contact, together with an advantageous socioeconomic profile, increases the likelihood of casting a ballot. Measurement and modeling handicaps permit a lingering uncertainty about campaign communication as a source of political mobilization however. Using data from a uniquely detailed telephone survey conducted in a pair of highly competitive 2002 U.S. Senate races, we further assess the influence of politics on participation. We conclude that vote history is the most important stimulant in voter mobilization but that holding this variable constant reveals some effect for campaign communication among intermittent voters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Presents research which examined the transfer of party electoral strength in U.S. elections. Assessment of the advantages of the Republican Party over the Democratic Party; Analysis of the complexity of federal system of elections; Problems associated with the transferral of partisan electoral strength.

Examines the causes for the relatively poor showing of women political candidates in the U.S. congressional elections in 2002. Examination of the types of seats women contested; Effects of the political climate on the candidacy of women; Communication of women candidates with voters.

This paper reports on the results of an exit poll of the 2008 presidential election contest in Webb County, Texas, the U.S. county with most Hispanics as a percentage of total population (and a county whose state convention delegates were overwhelmingly Hillary Clinton supporters). The survey will include traditional measures of racial resentment (and possibly items on old-style racism), with the hope of investigating whether rivalries between blacks and Hispanics are the result of economic competition between members of the two groups or motivated by racial attitudes and determining whether these factors impact Hispanic support for the presumptive Democratic nominee. The survey will be administered in both English and Spanish. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from media richness theory, certain forms of media, such as television, have greater informational impact on viewers and subsequent viewer cognitive information and action than other forms, such as newspapers. Through the use of the American National Election Survey Panel Study: 1990-1992, this longitudinal study examines two forms of media, newspaper and television, as well as war news to determine the influence on political opinion and voter participation. Results indicate that reading the newspaper or attention to campaign material in newspapers has no effect on subsequent political opinion, ideology, or turnout. Increased attention to television news campaign coverage yields a greater likelihood of voting as well as negative feelings about political leaders; however, too much attention to television campaigns creates media saturation level for voter participation and opinions about leaders, suggesting quality, not quantity is an important factor for political reasoning and action. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]