Campaigning to a Polarised Electorate: Emotions and Information in Real Election Campaigns

Political polarisation has reshaped electoral competition in many democracies, presenting traditional programmatic political parties with a dual challenge: finding ways to make policy-based campaigning resonate with voters without exacerbating partisan divisions. We partner with a mainstream opposition party to implement a field experiment during the 2019 Philippine Senatorial election to compare two common campaign strategies—direct policy-focused canvassing and an emotional engagement component—to assess both their electoral effects and their implications for polarisation. We find that, even in polarised contexts, in-person engagement providing policy information increases votes for the party. Both strategies increase learning, and importantly, neither strategy produces backlash among pro-incumbent voters; if anything, evidence suggests cross-cutting moderating effects. These results suggest that mainstream parties can communicate policy effectively even in highly polarised contexts, and that direct policy and emotional engagement need not exacerbate partisan divides.