Endorsements in Campaigns

CANDIDATE ENDORSEMENTS SERVE as informational cues to the media, party activists, contributors, and voters as to which candidates are desirable and electable. Endorsements of candidates are relatively more important during nomination campaigns than general election campaigns. Presidential nomination campaigns are low-information environments in which most prospective voters have little information about candidates' personal character or policy positions. More generally, voters cannot use party labels to distinguish between candidates and the ideological distinctions between candidates are relatively nuanced during nomination campaigns. In this context, endorsements provide signals about the relative ideological location of candidates in the context of their political party, about their abilities to lead and govern, and about their respective chances of winning. During the general election campaign, endorsements mainly serve the function of providing credibility for candidate claims on policy matters.

Candidates seek endorsements as part of their efforts to build strong personal networks of volunteers and contributors from the overlapping organizations and networks that form the modern political parties. Candidates use endorsements in their appeals to campaign contributors. Endorsements affect candidates' fundraising and limit the resources available to other candidates. Endorsing politicians and organizations may actively aid the endorsee's campaign through their own organizations and fundraising networks. For example, labor unions endorsing candidates often recruit members to volunteer for a candidate's campaign, distributing information, and mobilizing voters on Election Day. Finally, endorsements are a factor in explaining mass partisan preferences for candidates before the primaries, and are a significant predictor of candidates' share of the vote in presidential primaries that determine who will become the party's nominee. The impact of an endorsement depends on the political preferences and awareness of the recipient of an information cue.

An endorsement may reinforce or detract from the image and appeal of a candidate, depending on the appeal of an endorsing person or organization to the recipient of the informational cue. An individual's interpretation of political information is influenced by their unique set of beliefs, values, and attitudes formed [Page 218]through their socialization and life experiences. Voters interpret fragments of information obtained through episodic attention to politics in ways that are consistent with their existing beliefs. Most voters' interpretation of political information is affected by their party loyalties, ideological orientations, and deep-seated political attitudes. People tend to pay attention to and incorporate information consistent with their existing beliefs and preferences, while ignoring or discrediting information that is dissonant with their existing beliefs and preferences.

Thus, a given endorsement may generate a positive or negative response by a person, depending on their impressions of the endorsing person or organization. For example, an endorsement by a labor union may generate a favorable response from a factory worker, but an unfavorable response from a conservative businessper-son. The impact of endorsements also depends on the political awareness of individuals. Relatively few voters pay a great deal of attention to presidential campaigns, and most are generally unaware of news occurring in other states. Limited public awareness of political information limits the potential impact of endorsements during a campaign.

Despite limited public awareness of most endorsements, however, they may still affect the outcome of presidential campaigns, especially at the nomination stage. One reason is that party activists, campaign contributors, and organizations aligned with the political parties are more politically aware and, therefore, more likely to know about a candidate's endorsements. These people, groups, and the news media provide candidates with the resources and exposure needed to compete for the support of primary voters across the country. Thus, endorsements indirectly affect the outcomes of presidential nomination campaigns by contributing to candidates' relative abilities to compete for the support of hundreds of thousands of prospective primary voters.

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