Candidate Occupations and Voter Information Shortcuts

Abstract

Voters in low-information elections frequently rely on heuristics or information shortcuts when making their decisions of whom to support. While existing research on these shortcuts has examined many candidate characteristics, it has largely overlooked the potential of candidate occupational cues. This article uses experimental survey data conducted by the Los Angeles Times Poll in the 1994 statewide elections in California to analyze whether candidates' occupational ballot designations influence voters' choices. Specifically, it hypothesizes that voters use candidate occupational labels to infer candidates' competence or qualifications for the office in question. As the analysis demonstrates, candidate occupational cues have two simultaneous effects on voting behavior: they help voters make a decision in races where they otherwise might not have, decreasing abstention; and in races in which voters infer one candidate to have a qualification advantage, the addition of occupational designations makes voters more likely to support that candidate.Voters in low-information electoral situations frequently rely on cues or heuristics to aid them in making a decision between unfamiliar candidates. Specifically, voters have been shown to take personal information about the candidates and infer from it political information with which they can take a shortcut to an "informed" voting decision (Popkin 1991). Candidate characteristics such as gender (McDermott 1997), race (McDermott 1998Sigelman et al. 1995), and even sexual orientation (Golebiowska 2001; Herrick and Thomas 1999) all function in this manner.One potential source of inferential information, however, has been almost entirely overlooked in the existing literature on voter heuristics-candidate occupation. While a few early studies have examined potential positive or negative effects of given occupations (e.g., Byrne and Pueschell 1974), to date none has examined occupational cues as a potential source of voter information shortcuts.There is good reason to believe that candidate occupations can operate as heuristics for voters in low-information contests. First, the information may be readily available to voters. And second, the relevance of previous experience to future performance may make voters likely to rely on inferred information of this kind.

It's the occupation, stupid! Explaining candidates' success in low-information elections

“…Dubois (1984) focuses on judicial elections in California and finds that candidates with a "judicial" occupation label have a higher probability of being elected. McDermott (2005) Berggren et al (2010a) focus on the effects of candidates' looks on their electoral success, they also control for occupational effects and include 13 occupation dummies in their regressions. Their coefficients mainly remain insignificant, with some exceptions.…”

“…Scholars have often argued that information on a candidate's characteristics serves as a shortcut of this kind especially in low-information elections 1 (see, e.g., McDermott, 2005). In such elections, any information on a candidate's characteristics might help voters as cues.…”

Povolání zvolených poslanců za první republiky a dnes

“…Spolu se změnami sociální struktury a postupnou přeměnou politických stran směrem od stavovských ke stranám typu catch-all zaznamenanými po roce 1989 již tolik nejde o hájení zájmů konkrétních sociálních skupin, ale spíše o obecnou schopnost zastávat poslaneckou funkci. Dá se proto předpokládat, že voliči budou spíše preferovat kandidáty s prestižním zaměstnáním, které má vztah k politickému úřadu (McDermott 2005;Bernard 2012). Jestliže si kandidát přináší zkušenosti a schopnosti z prestižního povolání v minulosti, budou voliči s větší pravděpodobností vykazovat podporu tomuto kandidátovi, stejně tak jako hodnotí potencionální zaměstnavatelé uchazeče o zaměstnání (McDermott 2005: 203).…”

The impact of incumbency on turnout. Evidence from Italian municipalities

“…For instance, McDermott (2005), by focusing on statewide elections held in California, studies the impact of the candidate occupational label on voters' choice. She shows that candidate occupational clue helps voters to make a decision in low-information races, reducing abstention.…”