Direct Democracy, Public Opinion, and Candidate Choice

Abstract

We argue that the rich information environment created by ballot measures makes some policy issues more salient, shaping voters' positions on broad topics such as the importance of the economy. This in turn may affect candidate choice for national and statewide elected office. We theorize that the creation of state-specific issue publics may be the causal mechanism underlying this process. Using large-sample national survey data with robust samples from the 50 U.S. states, we test whether mass support for a specific policy - raising the minimum wage - is higher in states where the issue is on the ballot, whether being directly exposed to initiative campaigns elevates the importance of broad issues like the economy, and whether the economic-related ballot measures prime support for Democratic candidates. We find that exposure to minimum-wage ballot measure campaigns in 2006 modified support for the policy among partisan subsamples (with Democrats becoming more likely and Republicans less likely to support the measure), increased the saliency of the economy in general among these targeted populations, and primed support for Democratic candidates up and down the ballot.