The Timeline of Presidential Election Campaigns

The research addresses the evolution of electoral sentiment over the campaign cycle. The researchers translate general arguments about the role of election campaigns into a set of formal, statistical expectations, then outline an empirical analysis and examine trial-heat poll results for the 15 United States presidential elections between 1944 and 2000. The analysis focuses specifically on two questions. First, to what extent does the observable variation in aggregate poll results represent real movement in electoral preferences (if the election were held the day of the poll) as opposed to mere survey error? Second, to the extent polls register true movement of preferences owing to the shocks of campaign events, do the effects last or do they decay? Answers to these questions tell us whether and the extent to which campaign events have effects on preferences and whether these effects persist until Election Day. The answers thus inform about whether campaigns have any real impact on the final election outcome.