Religious Stereotyping and Voter Support for Evangelical Candidates

McDermott, Monika L.

doi:10.1177/1065912908320668

Cited by 70 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…The findings regarding evangelical candidates in particular provide real-world verification of the experimental results described by McDermott (2009). As a candidate changes from a Democrat to a Republican, the probability that this candidate is perceived to be on the conservative side of the political spectrum ( predicted ideology > 0) rises from 0.36 to 0.47; a difference in probability of 0.11.…”

Section: Predicted Probabilitiessupporting

confidence: 72%

Religion and Perceptions of Candidates' Ideologies in United States House Elections

Jacobsmeier

2013

Politics and Religion

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Using data from the American National Election Studies, Poole-Rosenthal DW-Nominate scores, and data on the religious affiliations of members of the United States House of Representatives, I show that religion has important independent effects on the evaluation of candidates' ideologies. The results suggest that candidates affiliated with evangelical Christianity will tend to be seen as more conservative than ideologically similar candidates from mainline Protestant denominations. Jewish candidates, in contrast, will tend to be seen as more liberal than ideologically similar mainline Protestants. Additionally, the use of religion-based stereotypes varies with frequency of church attendance. These findings attest to the external validity of recent experiment-based research on religion-based political stereotypes. The approach employed here also allows for the estimation of the magnitude of the effects of such stereotypes. The results shed light on both the importance of religion in election campaigns and the factors that influence perceptions of candidates' ideologies more generally.I would like to thank Carey Stapleton for research assistance, and Lynda Powell, Dick Niemi, and Michael Lindsay for their helpful suggestions. I also owe much gratitude to Jim Guth and Tom Rudolph for providing a portion of the data used in the analysis.

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Section: Predicted Probabilitiessupporting

confidence: 72%

Religion and Perceptions of Candidates' Ideologies in United States House Elections

Jacobsmeier

2013

Politics and Religion

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“…Extending their logic to the choice between political candidates, we would expect that citizens use even minimally informative cues about candidate ideology to form affective evaluations of the candidates. However, previous research identifies a range of personal characteristics, including character traits (Druckman 2004;Funk 1997Funk , 1999Miller 1990;Miller et al 1986) and group-oriented stereotypes based on candidate race (Valentino et al 2002), gender (McDermott 1997, and religion (Bolce and DeMaio 1999;McDermott 2009), that also influence citizens' evaluations of political officials.…”

Section: Ideological Differences Candidate Characteristics and Affementioning

confidence: 97%

How Ideology Fuels Affective Polarization

2015

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Scholars have reached mixed conclusions about the implications of increased political polarization for citizen decision-making. In this paper, we argue that citizens respond to ideological divergence with heightened affective polarization. Using a survey experiment conducted with a nationally representative sample of U.S. citizens, we find that increased ideological differences between political figures produce increasingly polarized affective evaluations, and that these differences are especially large among respondents with stronger ideological commitments and higher levels of political interest. We provide further support for these findings in an observational study of citizens' evaluations of the U.S. Senators from their state. We also find that the polarizing effects of ideological differences can be largely mitigated with biographical information about the public officials, which suggests that the pernicious consequences of ideological polarization can be overcome by focusing on matters other than political disagreement.

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“…A growing body of literature has used experimental manipulations to test the effects of a politician's religious affiliation on voter stereotypes and evaluations (Campbell, Green, and Layman 2011). For example, Jews are typically stereotyped as liberal (Bernisky and Mendelberg 2005), while evangelicals are seen as conservative, but also trustworthy (McDermott 2009). These studies have generally found that religious affiliation activates stereotypes and affects evaluations.…”

Section: Informational Shortcuts and Religious Cuesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cueing God: Religious Cues and Voter Support

McLaughlin

Wise

2014

Politics and Religion

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Scholars contend that correctly applying religious cues is crucial to winning political elections. This article examines the effect of general religious cues by conducting an experiment on a national sample (N = 520). Through the use of a fictitious congressional candidate's webpage, we examine how subtle and overt religious cues interact with citizen religiosity to affect political evaluations. The findings demonstrate that politicians who use overt religious cues run the risk of alienating a large portion of potential voters. Religious cues do, however, appear to become more effective as citizens become more religious. We also find some evidence that overt religious cues are more polarizing than subtle religious cues. This article provides a foundation from which to more thoroughly consider how general religious cues can affect political outcomes and how these cues may interact with other factors.

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Religious Stereotyping and Voter Support for Evangelical Candidates

Cited by 70 publications

References 29 publications

Religion and Perceptions of Candidates' Ideologies in United States House Elections

Religion and Perceptions of Candidates' Ideologies in United States House Elections

How Ideology Fuels Affective Polarization

Cueing God: Religious Cues and Voter Support

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