Angry, Passionate, and Divided: Undecided Voters and the 2016 Presidential Election

Abstract

During the primary and general election, researchers Schill and Kirk collected focus group insights on how undecided voters came to make choices in the 2016 election. As consultants for CNN’s election coverage, the team researched voters from across the nation—in the early primary states to the conventions and general election. After a review of factors that influence vote choice, this article focuses on the dominant expressions of attitude (pain, loss, joy, nostalgia, pleasure, belonging, and anger) during 2016 election period and explains how voter attitudes toward those themes affected voter choice. Not only were these themes manifested in (un)civil discourse, they were often fueled by the campaigns. Importantly, these assessments come from the voters themselves and provide insights as to how the campaigns unfolded and how campaign messages attempted to influence voters.

Remembering Election Night 2016: Subjective but not objective metrics of autobiographical memory vary with political affiliation, affective valence, and surprise.

“…The 2016 election of Republican Donald Trump as the United States' 45 th president is considered a towering event in recent American politics: media sources described it as a "cataclysmic, history-making upset" (Cillizza, 2016), stunning many critics and members of the public anticipating a victory by opponent Democrat Hillary Clinton (Francia, 2018). The 2016 American presidential election was also characterized by particularly strong emotional responses by supporters of both the Republican and Democratic political parties, in terms of positive opinions towards their preferred candidate as well as negative opinions towards the opposing candidate (Faris et al, 2017;Schill & Kirk, 2017). Emotional responses to sociopolitical events, often elicited as a function of group affiliation and anticipated policy changes, have been welldocumented in the social sciences literature (Craig, Martinez, Gainous, & Kane, 2006;Kawachi & Berkman, 2000;Rahn, Kroeger, & Kite, 1996) but the outcome of the 2016 American election is notable in terms of both the intensity of emotion and surprise elicited (Ceaser, Busch, & Pitney Jr, 2019;Hoyt, Zeiders, Chaku, Toomey, & Nair, 2018).…”

Young adults’ psychological and physiological reactions to the 2016 U.S. presidential election

“…Studying the 2016 presidential election is warranted given the unique political and sociocultural context. One defining aspect of this election was the especially strong negative opinions concerning trustworthiness and likeability of both major candidates: Donald Trump (Republican) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (Democrat) (Faris et al, 2017;Schill & Kirk, 2017).…”

Begin Again: Election Campaign and Own Opinions Among First‐Time Voters in Romania

“…The belief that politicians try to keep their campaign promises gives a feeling of responsiveness and accountability, which can lead to a positive assessment among voters (Anderson and Brettschneider, 2003), being also a sign of a strong democracy (Shockley-Zalabak, Morreale, and Stavrositu, 2017). Trust in politicians determine voters to watch candidates' campaigns, to listen to their electoral promises and to know more about what candidates can address the issues they cared about most (Schill and Kirk, 2017). In candidate-centered campaigns, there is a process of personalization of politics in which the personal traits of candidates and their messages can influence the electorate (Corner and Pels, 2003;Petrarca, Giebler, and Weßels, 2020).…”