Polls, partisanship, and voter decision-making: An experimental analysis

Abstract

The literature on poll effects focuses primarily on the impact that polls have on aggregate election outcomes. Seeking to better understand the individual-level dynamics of the influence of polls on the decision process, we examine how campaign-period polls and party attachments interact to influence one’s vote choice. We do so with an online voting experiment in which participants were randomly assigned to a variety of poll treatments in the context of a Canadian national election. We expect that partisans are likely to vote along party lines, regardless of the information conveyed in the poll treatment. We further examine how political sophistication and the nature of the poll results shape the vote choice among partisans. The results demonstrate that polls have little overall effect on the vote choice, though there is some evidence that partisanship, sophistication, and the nature of the race can condition the effects of polls on voting behavior.