Voters, Issues, and Elections: Are the Candidates' Messages Getting Through?

Candidates, voters, and political scientists believe issues are important in political campaigns, but the evidence for that contention is weak. An analysis of voters' recollection of issues discussed in their state's Senate election campaign reveals that few voters can identify correctly the important issues. An examination of campaign effects, personal effects, and state effects shows that personal effects are most significantly related to the voters' ability to recall an issue. Because many respondents appeared to be "misinformed" and mentioned issues not raised by the Senate campaign, a further analysis explored several possible sources for these mentions--projection of personal concerns, salient national issues, or campaigns for other offices.