Recent research into the 2016 United States presidential election offers insights into how effective the two major campaigns were at informing voters. The study, published in American Politics Research, suggests that Donald Trump’s campaign was more successful than Hillary Clinton’s campaign at communicating memorable policy proposals that voters believed would personally benefit them. These findings indicate that the ability of a campaign to implant specific policy ideas in the minds of the electorate may be a significant factor in election outcomes.
Political scientists often debate the extent to which political campaigns actually influence voters. A common perspective in the field is that campaigns have minimal effects on voter attitudes or their ultimate choice at the ballot box. However, the 2016 election presented a unique set of circumstances that warranted a closer examination of this conventional wisdom.
The distinct styles of the two candidates provided a natural experiment in communication strategies. Hillary Clinton ran a more traditional campaign that often focused on the character and fitness of her opponent. Donald Trump utilized a strategy characterized by simple, repetitive slogans and unconventional policy promises.
“Following the surprising outcome of the 2016 US presidential election, many reporters engaged in valuable fieldwork, interviewing Trump voters. While these interviews and focus groups offered rich insights, they often involved relatively small sample sizes, and we recognized an opportunity to complement this work by using our comprehensive survey, which was in the field throughout the 2016 general election campaign,” explained study author Jan Zilinsky, a postdoctoral research fellow at the Munich School of Politics and Public Policy.
“A key aspect of our approach was including open-ended questions for our respondents, letting people tell us what they thought in their own words. Specifically, we asked individuals how they anticipated their lives would improve if either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump were elected. We also asked whether they could name a specific issue championed by either candidate that they believed would make their own lives better.”
“We approached this study with a genuine sense of curiosity to understand the motivations behind voter choices. We were agnostic and genuinely weren’t sure what whether, for example, typical supporters of Donald Trump primarily voted against Hillary Clinton, or if they were driven by specific Trump policies (promises) when casting their ballots.”
The researchers aimed to measure whether voters could spontaneously articulate a specific reason why a candidate’s victory would improve their own lives. This approach tests whether campaign information actually penetrated the electorate’s consciousness. It serves as a measure of how well a candidate connected their platform to the personal well-being of the voter.
To investigate this, the researchers utilized a survey fielded by YouGov between October 25 and November 7, 2016. The sample included 2,354 respondents and was weighted to be representative of the national voting-age population. The core of the study revolved around two open-ended questions. Respondents were asked to name a policy Donald Trump supported that would make their life better if enacted. They were then asked to do the same for Hillary Clinton.
The researchers recorded these open-ended responses verbatim. They then coded the answers into specific policy categories to analyze the substance of what voters remembered. This methodology allowed the team to distinguish between voters who genuinely knew a policy and those who might simply guess on a multiple-choice question. It provided a rigorous test of the effectiveness of campaign messaging in the final days of the election cycle.
The analysis produced evidence of a substantial gap in policy recall between the two candidates. The data showed that 44 percent of all respondents could name a specific Trump policy they believed would benefit them. In contrast, only 34 percent of respondents could name a beneficial policy proposed by Hillary Clinton. This suggests that Trump’s messaging strategy was more effective at reaching the general public with concrete promises.
“We found that a significant percentage of voters were indeed able to articulate policy reasons for supporting their chosen candidate,” Zilinsky told PsyPost. “This pattern was observed among supporters of both Trump and Clinton, though it was more pronounced in the case of Trump supporters.”
This disparity became even more pronounced when the researchers broke the data down by partisanship. Political parties generally rely on their own base to know and support their platform. The study found that 79 percent of Republicans were able to articulate a policy-related reason to support Trump. On the Democratic side, only 62 percent of respondents could name a policy-related reason to support Clinton. A significant portion of the Democratic base—nearly four out of ten—could not identify a single policy from their nominee that they felt would improve their lives.
The researchers also examined the relationship between education levels and policy recall. Typically, political science research finds that higher levels of education correlate with higher levels of political knowledge. The results regarding Hillary Clinton followed this expected pattern. Respondents with higher educational attainment were more likely to name a beneficial Clinton policy than those with less education.
The results regarding Donald Trump did not follow this traditional pattern. The data showed no significant relationship between a respondent’s level of education and their ability to name a Trump policy. Voters with lower levels of formal education were just as likely to recall a Trump promise as those with college degrees. This suggests that Trump’s communication style may have successfully bypassed the cognitive barriers that often make political platforms difficult for some voters to absorb.
Media consumption habits played a measurable role in these outcomes. The researchers analyzed how different news sources correlated with the ability to name policies. Watching conservative cable news outlets was strongly associated with a higher probability of naming a Trump policy. Watching liberal cable news outlets was associated with a higher probability of naming a Clinton policy.
Exposure to mainstream news sources appeared to have an asymmetrical effect. Respondents who consumed mainstream media were more likely to name a Clinton policy than those who did not. However, mainstream media consumption showed no positive association with the ability to name a Trump policy. This implies that voters relied on different information ecosystems to learn about the two candidates.
The substance of the recalled policies also differed significantly between the candidates. Among respondents who named a Trump policy, immigration was the most frequently cited issue. This aligns with the heavy emphasis the Trump campaign placed on border security and the construction of a wall. Economic issues, such as taxes and jobs, were also frequently mentioned by those who could recall a Trump policy.
For Hillary Clinton, the most commonly recalled policy area was health care. This suggests that her defense of the Affordable Care Act registered with a segment of the electorate. However, very few respondents mentioned her economic policies. Despite having a detailed policy platform, her specific economic proposals did not appear to resonate or stick in the minds of voters to the same degree as Trump’s.
“Many who voted for Trump certainly voiced traditional Republican priorities, such as border security and national security,” Zilinsky noted. “However, we also found that some of Trump’s more unconventional policies, including his protectionist leanings on economic issues, resonated quite strongly with many voters.”
“Parts of the Trump platform involved being ‘left-wing’ or ‘progressive’ on economics; many voters noticed this and some approved of it. The campaign’s pervasive nature meant that individuals were broadly exposed to information about the candidates. Our research indicated that many participants recalled specific electoral promises, and for some voters, these policy commitments proved appealing.”
The researchers also investigated the link between policy recall and voting behavior. While the study cannot prove that knowing a policy caused a person to vote a certain way, the correlation was strong. Democrats who were unable to name a beneficial Clinton policy were 17 percentage points less likely to vote for her than Democrats who could name one. This indicates that the failure to communicate a memorable policy vision may have cost Clinton support among voters who were otherwise predisposed to support her.
These findings challenge the narrative that the 2016 election was decided solely by identity politics or vague populist appeals. The data suggests that a significant number of voters, including those with lower levels of education, were engaging with the policy content of the campaign. They were processing specific promises and evaluating how those promises would affect their personal economic and social standing. Trump’s advantage lay in his ability to make those promises memorable and seemingly relevant to a wider array of voters.
There are some limitations to this study that should be noted. The research relies on observational data collected at a single point in time. It is possible that voters decided to support a candidate for other reasons and then learned a policy to justify that choice. The direction of causality cannot be fully established with this type of data.
Another potential issue involves the motivation of the respondents. It is possible that some voters were aware of a Clinton policy but refused to mention it due to a strong dislike for the candidate. The open-ended format requires a level of cooperation from the respondent that might be influenced by their emotional state regarding the election. Additionally, the study focuses on the 2016 election, which was highly unusual in many respects.
Future research is needed to determine if these patterns hold in other election cycles with different candidates. It would be useful to apply this open-ended questioning method to state and local elections to see if the “recall gap” persists. Further investigation into how specific media narratives shape memory over the course of a long campaign would also provide greater context. Understanding how voters process and retain policy information remains a vital area of inquiry for understanding democratic outcomes.
“I think to some extent both in political science and also in broader discussions of public opinion there is sometimes a lot of heated debate as to whether voters are ‘ideological,’ i.e. do people actually vote on the basis of issues or some completely different considerations,” Zilinsky said. “But I think our results suggest there could be a middle ground where most voters may not be strongly ideological, but there could be one or two policy issues which people pay attention to. And in that sense, campaigns could matter, and the ability to receive a lot of free media can be very helpful to political candidates.”
“I am still very interested in designing approaches to encourage potential voters to truthfully state their political preferences and I have been thinking a lot about whether people will be discussing their own politics with chatbots.”
The study, “The Trump Advantage in Policy Recall Among Voters,” was authored by Jan Zilinsky, Joshua A. Tucker, and Jonathan Nagler.
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