Persuade swing voters or mobilize the base? A new study by CSAP researchers has implications for 2020

image concept of 2020 election: Trump, Biden, and voters
October 30, 2020

Should 2020 presidential candidates Joe Biden and Donald Trump focus more on persuading swing voters or on mobilizing their bases? Former CSAP postdoctoral fellow Dan Hopkins addresses this question in a recent article published in The Washington Post Monkey Cage. He draws on new research to demonstrate the relative influence of each of these approaches in the presidential elections of 2012 and 2016 and suggests that persuasion mattered more in places that swung most decisively to the GOP in 2016. Link here to read the full article.

Daniel Hopkins, now a political science professor at the University of Pennsylvania, teamed up with another former CSAP postdoctoral associate, Seth Hill (UCSD), and CSAP Associate Director Greg Huber to conduct this research project.  The published paper, “And Not by Turnout Alone: Measuring the Sources of Electoral Change, 2012 to 2016,” is available on the SSRN website.

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