When Pandering is Not Persuasive

Technological advances have made it increasingly easy for candidates and campaigns to target particular messages to specific groups of voters; however, there has been little attention paid to whether targeted pandering to groups actually works. In this paper, we use a survey experiment to examine whether and the extent to which targeted appeals to narrow groups provide candidates with an advantage over the use of broader appeals. The experimental design allows us to fully randomize both the group to which the candidate makes an appeal (the middle class, religious conservatives, Latinos, or unions) and the source of the appeal (a Democratic or Republican candidate). We generally find that targeted appeals do little to increase support for candidates among the narrower groups, while citizens who do not belong to the targeted group tend to penalize the candidate for making such an appeal. The one consistent exception is for appeals to religious conservatives–Republican candidates fared significantly better among born again Christians when targeting their appeal to religious conservatives rather than the middle class. Ultimately, we conclude that targeted pandering may not be as effective as is often assumed, but that among certain groups and in certain contexts, such pandering can pay off.