UpRise Original Research
Despite its huge popularity among volunteers, people are hesitant to adopt postcard writing as a serious campaign strategy due to the lack of solid data.
In order to better measure the impact of hand written postcards and hand addressed letters, UpRise conducted three large scale experiments in the 2018 midterm elections with the volunteers of Arizona Legislative Districts 21 and 22.
We expected no impact at all, given that these voters were the recipients of dozens of pieces of mail as well as endless calls, door knocks and TV ads.
Much to our surprise, we saw significant impact from a single contact!
Hand written postcards to less-likely-to-vote Democrats increased turnout in the 2018 midterm general election by 2.37 percentage points (from 50.59% to 52.96%) compared with a randomized control group.
Here are the results of our three experiments:
https://uprisecampaigns.org/postcardexperiments/
Psychology of Persuasion
Cognitive Science
Lakoff, George (2014). The ALL NEW Don’t Think of an Elephant!: Know Your Values and Frame the Debate. Chelsea Green Publishing
http://georgelakoff.com/2014/08/18/new-book-the-all-new-dont-think-of-an-elephant-know-your-values-and-frame-the-debate/
Lakoff, George (2008). The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain. New York: Viking Penguin
http://www.amazon.com/The-Political-Mind-Cognitive-Scientists/dp/0143115685
Lakoff, George (1996). Moral Politics: How Liberals and Conservatives Think. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press
http://www.amazon.com/Moral-Politics-Liberals-Conservatives-Think/dp/0226467708
Clinical Neuroscience
Westen, Drew ( 2008). The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation. Public Affairs
http://www.thepoliticalbrain.com/
Offline Outreach
Field Operations
Vincent Pons (2016). Will a Five-Minute Discussion Change Your Mind? A Countrywide Experiment on Voter Choice in France. Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 16-079, January 2016.
https://uprisecampaigns.org/CanvassingWorks
Ryan D. Enos and Anthony Fowler (2015). Aggregate Effects of Large-Scale Campaigns on Voter Turnout.
https://uprisecampaigns.org/GOTVAggregateEffects/
Visibility
Jonah Berger and Eric M. Schwartz (2011). What Drives Immediate and Ongoing Word of Mouth? Journal of Marketing Research, 48 (5), 869-880.
https://uprisecampaigns.org/visualcues/
Donald P. Green, Jonathan S. Krasno, Alexander Coppock, et al. (2016). The Effects of Lawn Signs on Vote Outcomes: Results from Four Randomized Field Experiments. Electoral Studies, 41, 143–150
https://uprisecampaigns.org/LawnSignsDoVote
Cindy Kam and Elizabeth Zechmeister (2013). Name Recognition and Candidate Support. American Journal of Political Science, 57, 971–986
https://uprisecampaigns.org/LawnSignsNameRec/
Influencer, Word of Mouth Marketing
Keller, Ed and Berry, Jonathan (2003). The Influentials: One American in Ten Tells the Other Nine How to Vote, Where to Eat, and What to Buy. New York: The Free Press. http://www.amazon.com/The-Influentials-American-Tells-Other/dp/0743227298
Keller, Ed and Fay, Brad (2012). The Face-to-Face Book: Why Real Relationships Rule in a Digital Marketplace. New York: The Free Press.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Face-Face-Book-Relationships/dp/1451640064
Ed Keller and Brad Fay (2009). Comparing Online and Offline Word of Mouth: Quantity, Quality and Impact. New Brunswick, NJ: Keller Fay Group
https://uprisecampaigns.org/OfflineWOM
Issenberg, Sasha (2012). The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns. Broadway Books
http://www.thevictorylab.com/
Word of Mouth Marketing Association (WOMMA) and the American Marketing Association (AMA) (2013). State of Word of Mouth Marketing Survey.
https://uprisecampaigns.org/AMA.Survey/
Nielsen Global Trust in Advertising Report (2015).
https://uprisecampaigns.org/nielsentrustsurvey2015/
Street Teams
Issenberg, Sasha (2012). The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns. Broadway Books, pp. 288-289
http://www.thevictorylab.com/
Costas Panagopoulos (2009) Street fight: The impact of a street sign campaign on voter turnout. Electoral Studies, 28 (2), 309–313
https://uprisecampaigns.org/StreetFight
Community Building
Fournier, Ron, Sosnick, Douglas B., and Dowd, Matthew (2006). Applebee’s America: How Successful Political, Business, and Religious Leaders Connect with the New American Community. Simon & Schuster
http://www.amazon.com/Applebees-America-Successful-Political-Religious/dp/0743287193
Advertising Effects
Liam C Malloy and Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz (2016). Going Positive: The Effects of Negative and Positive Advertising on Candidate Success and Voter Turnout. Research and Politics, January-March 2016.
https://uprisecampaigns.org/GoingPositive
Richard R. Lau, Lee Sigelman, and Ivy Brown Rovner (2007). The Effects of Negative Political Campaigns: A Meta-Analytic Reassessment. Journal of Politics, 69 (4), 1176-1209.
https://uprisecampaigns.org/NegativeAdsReview
Stephen Ansolabehere, Shanto Iyengar, et al. (1994). Does Attack Advertising Demobilize the Electorate? American Political Science Review, 88, pp 829-838.
https://uprisecampaigns.org/goingnegative
Chris W. Bonneau and Damon M. Cann (2011). Campaign Spending, Diminishing Marginal Returns, and Campaign Finance Restrictions in Judicial Elections. The Journal of Politics, 73 , 1267-1280
https://uprisecampaigns.org/DiminishingReturns/
Michael M. Franz and Travis N. Ridout (2010). Political Advertising and Persuasion in the 2004 and 2008 Presidential Elections, American Politics Research, 38, 303
https://uprisecampaigns.org/AdAdvantage/
Thomas Stratmann (2009). How Prices Matter in Politics: The Returns to Campaign Advertising. Public Choice, 140 (3/4), 357-377
https://uprisecampaigns.org/AdvertisingROI/
Seth J. Hill, et al. (2008). The Duration of Advertising Effects in the 2000 Presidential Campaign. MPSA Annual National Conference, Chicago, IL, Apr 03, 2008
https://uprisecampaigns.org/AdvertisingDuration/
Gregory A. Huber and Kevin Arceneaux (2007). Identifying the Persuasive Effects of Presidential Advertising. American Journal of Political Science, 51, 957–977.
https://uprisecampaigns.org/DiminishingReturnsPres/
Issue Targeting
John Sides and Andrew Karch (2008). Messages that Mobilize? Issue Publics and the Content of Campaign Advertising. The Journal of Politics, 70 (2), 466-476. http://home.gwu.edu/~jsides/mobilize.pdf
Direct Mail and Phone Calls
Emily A. Cardy (2005). An Experimental Field Study of the GOTV and Persuasion Effects of Partisan Direct Mail and Phone Calls. The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 601: 28-40.
http://ann.sagepub.com/content/601/1/28.abstract
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