Rahul Sharma's AP Govt Blog 1.7

Campaigning doesn't work - general election study    7th period

 The outreach activity by political campaigns essentially has no impact on voters’ choice of candidate in general elections. While having no impact, campaigns can still make an impact on voters. 
Broockman and Kalla studied the 2015 primary and the 2016 election and found that -1.9% of people were actually persuaded by campaign activities close to the election. Actions close to elections are useless, whereas actions months before the election have a legitimate chance of changing someone's mind. Campaign activities have a greater potential to affect primary elections, but not general elections. Broockman and Kalla found that canvassing can boost turnout, primary election persuasion, and persuasion in special elections. From the given data, groups should put more effort into boosting turnout at the end of a race rather than persuading voters earlier on. 
Two statewide cases where canvassing effected voter decisions include the 2008 US Senate race in Oregon between Republican Gordon Smith and Jeff Merkley, who was pro-choice. Planned Parenthood Advocates of Oregon and NARAL Pro-Choice Oregon worked together on a campaign in which they identified pro-choice voters and targeted them with mailings and phone calls hoping to educate them on Smith's actual views, and the pro-choice views of his opponent Jeff Merkley. Canvassers made flyers that were against governor Pat McCrory's 'bathroom bill" and were successful in convincing people to go against the bill.
The problem with campaign efforts to get new voters registered is that Voter registration is about $60 per vote, which is more expensive than turnout efforts. As a result, persuasion efforts are mathematicly more effective than finding new voters because persuasion efforts can effectively net campaigns two votes.

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