Grassroots Mobilization in the 2008 Presidential Election

Abstract

Previous research suggests that political parties have been especially active in personally contacting potential voters in recent presidential elections. Using data from the American National Election Studies (ANES) from 1956 through 2008, this study builds on the extant literature by examining major party contact during the 2008 election cycle. We also investigate the major parties' targeting strategies and the overall impact of party contact on voter turnout. We find that overall voter contact rates remained on par with 2004; in absolute terms, however, an unprecedented number of Americans report being contacted by a major party in 2008. Democrats were significantly more active than Republicans in 2008. For the most part, the parties pursued support from similar coalitions of voters as in 2004, although some groups were targeted more aggressively by each party in 2008, especially in competitive states. The results show further that mobilization efforts in 2008 accounted for boosting national turnout by 14.5 million votes.

KEYWORDS:

• campaign strategy
• political parties
• party contacting
• personal contact
• presidential elections
• turnout

Notes

Estimates obtained using probit analysis. ^a p < .01, ^b p < .10, ^c p < .05, two-tailed tests. Standard errors in parentheses.

This represents a turnout rate of approximately 56.8 percent for the voting-age population.

Some analysts estimated the number of Obama volunteers at 8 million (Newton-Small, 2008).

For more information about the ANES, see http://www.electionstudies.org

All ANES data reported in this article are weighted accordingly.

The 2008 National Election Pool (NEP) asked voters a similar question related to campaign contact (“Did any campaign contact you personally?”) and reports a lower percentage of those contacted than do the results from the ANES. According to the NEP results, 13 percent reported a contact from the Obama campaign only; 13 percent reported a contact from the McCain campaign only; and 6 percent reported a contact from both the Obama and McCain campaigns for a total of 32 percent contacted by Obama, McCain, or both. We note that these data reflect contact levels for voters, not the overall population (as with the ANES we report above).

We combine Democratic-only or Republican-only with contact by both parties accordingly.

Data not presented but available from authors upon request.

We also acknowledge the possibility that some respondents may be reporting contact during the primary contests. This possibility is especially acute in 2008 given the Democrats' long and spirited contest between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama. The ANES survey does not ask respondents to distinguish between primary and general election contact or contact by specific candidates or organizations, however. This limitation does not permit further exploration of this question.

Our indicator of battleground status is adopted from Huang and Shaw (2009). See the Appendix for more information.

See Panagopoulos and Wielhouwer (2008) for comparisons to 2004.

The full probit regression results are available online at http://francia.electiondata.org/contact_results.doc. We note that we obtain virtually identical results for the estimated impact of contact using Clarify (see King, Tomz, and Wittenberg 2000; and Tomz, Wittenberg, and King 2001). Data are available from the authors upon request.

A simple, linear (ordinary least squares) regression of the marginal impact of contact on turnout over time reveals that the impact has increased by 0.16 percentage points on average per election cycle over this period (coefficient = .16, S.E. = (.05), p < .01, N = 14).

We obtain these estimates by multiplying frequency of contact by marginal impact of contact for each cycle.

Motivation to vote was likely enhanced additionally by voters' perceptions about the degree of candidates' ideological polarization, overall competitiveness, and other contextual factors in recent presidential election cycles (Bergan et al., 2005).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Costas Panagopoulos

Costas Panagopoulos is assistant professor of political science and director of the Center for Electoral Politics and Democracy and the graduate program in Elections and Campaign Management at Fordham University.

Peter L. Francia

Peter L. Francia is associate professor in the Department of Political Science at East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina.