Measuring Campaign Variation in Senate Elections

对选举的研究主要集中在个人选民的行为和选择上。然而，关于候选人及其竞选活动对选民的影响所扮演的角色的问题通常被忽视了。然而，选民的选择只能在竞选活动的背景下被理解，并被恰当地设想为至少在竞争对手之间的竞争中的一部分结果。这项创新的研究试图衡量竞选策略对美国参议院选举中选民选择的影响。具体地说，这项研究将收集美国参议院候选人在1988年、1990年和1992年选举中的竞选行为数据。候选人活动和职位将根据报纸对竞选活动的报道确定。这些数据将与选民在这些竞选活动中的态度数据合并，从而能够评估选民在多大程度上认识到候选人的立场并影响他们的决定。这项研究完成后，将大大加深我们对竞选活动对选民选择的影响的了解，包括负面竞选活动和候选人提供选择而不是呼应的竞选活动的影响。

Research on elections has concentrated on the behavior and choices of individual voters. However, questions about the roles played by candidates and their campaigns as influences on voters typically have been ignored. Yet voter choice can only be understood within the context of a campaign and is properly conceived as a result at least in part of a contest between competing candidates. This innovative research attempts to measure the impact of campaign strategies on voter choice in U.S. Senate elections. Specifically, this research will collect data on the campaign behavior of US Senate candidates in the 1988, 1990 and 1992 elections. Candidate activities and positions will be determined based on newspaper coverage of the campaigns. These data will be merged with data on voter attitudes in these campaigns thus permitting assessments of the extent to which candidate positions are perceived by voters and influence their decisions. When completed this study will greatly enhance our understanding of the impact of campaigns on voter choice including the impact of negative campaigning and of campaigns in which candidates offer choices, not echoes.