Candidate Reputations and Issue Agendas

Bibliographic Data

ID6180171
AuthorsBrian Arbour (John Jay College of Criminal Justice, corresponding author), Brian K Arbour (John Jay College, CUNY, New York, NY, USA)
Year2013
Volume41
Issue6
Pages1022-1051
Publication date2013-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAmerican Politics Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1532-673X • E-ISSN: 1552-3373
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1532673x13482966
OpenAlexW2324577319
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited42

How do campaigns decide what issues to emphasize for voters? According to most studies, campaigns rely on factors outside of their control—issue salience, party issue ownership, and district ideology. In this article, I argue that campaign messages are designed primarily based on the candidate. I examine the issue content of campaign advertisements from U.S. House and Senate campaigns from 2000 to 2004 and develop a measure that determines if candidates have developed a reputation on a particular issue. When candidates have developed such a reputation, their campaign is more likely to highlight that issue to voters than campaigns whose candidate has not developed such a reputation. This relationship is consistent across most issues and across two different measures of a campaign’s issue agenda

Advertising · Business · Ideology · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Reputation · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Gender Politics and Representation · Law · Psychology · Social Media and Politics

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