Church or state? Reassessing how religion shapes impressions of candidate positions

Abstract

The literature largely assumes that a candidate’s religious affiliation sends signals about his or her ideological leanings and policy preferences. We contend that prior works have not sufficiently accounted for the effects of the party label. Using an original experimental design that manipulates both religion and party, we show that the effects of a religious cue are more limited than previously implied. Though Evangelical and Catholic cues do impact impressions of a candidate’s stance on abortion, the partisan cue dominates perceptions of overall ideology. These findings further demonstrate the power of the party brand and are more consistent with research arguing for the non-policy value of the religion heuristic.

Partisan news versus party cues: The effect of cross-cutting party and partisan network cues on polarization and persuasion

“…While important, several influential works demonstrate the influence of partisan cues, often overwhelming competing cues to such a degree that individuals will assume ideologically incongruent beliefs in an effort to match their views to their preferred party (Achen and Bartels, 2016;Cohen, 2003;Iyengar et al, 2012;Kraft et al, 2015). This same phenomenon applies directly to political candidates as well, with party cues overwhelming contextual cues when assessing candidate ideology (Simas and Ozer 2017) and candidate performance (Bartels, 2002;Goren, 2002). These works imply that the partisan siloization of politics may prevent pundits from establishing a brand as their partisan reputation will overwhelm any idiosyncratic characteristics in the audience's eyes.…”

“…Individuals even show a strong preference for ideologically neutral sources and more widely popular pundits over in-party sources (Messing and Westwood, 2012; Metzger et al, 2015). With specific regard to cross-cutting cues, contrasting religious and partisan cues (e.g., Jimmy Carter, a socially liberal Democratic president with socially conservative Evangelical Christian beliefs) may not alter perceptions of a candidate’s overall ideology, they do appear to moderate perception of the candidate’s position on key issues like abortion (Simas and Ozer 2017). Similarly, when exposed to cross-cutting contextual cues that provide information regarding the policy beliefs or technical expertise of speakers or candidates, individuals exhibit smaller (albeit still notable) partisan biases (Bullock 2011; Boudreau and MacKenzie 2014, 2018; Ozer 2020; Nicholson 2012).…”