As Election Day approaches, political endorsements have increasingly become a focus point in the media. However, there remains doubt about whether they have much of an effect on youth voter turnout.
In Pennsylvania, Republican senatorial candidate Pat Toomey has been endorsed by former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani as well as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin. In another statewide race, both former President Bill Clinton and President Barack Obama have led rallies for Democratic gubernatorial candidate Dan Onorato.
But Peter Levine — director of the Tufts University-based Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, which studies youth voting trends — doubted the effectiveness of endorsements among voters aged 18 to 29. “I don’t know of any research that estimates the impact of endorsements on young voters,” Levine wrote in an e-mail, adding that as “an observer of young people in elections, I frankly doubt that endorsements matter, whether they are made by celebrities or politicians.”
Annenberg School for Communication professor Alvin Felzenberg explained that the purpose of high-profile endorsements is not to change voters’ minds — rather, it is to “remind people there is an election.”
“When you have a rock star like Bill Clinton vouch for a candidate in person, it will hit the front page of the papers, and if you see it on your way to eat or get a coffee, it may remind you to vote,” Felzenberg said.
With respect to more polarizing endorsements, such as Palin’s, Felzenberg explained that they can be a “double-edged sword.”
Despite such an endorsement’s potential to rally a party’s ideological base, “you’re also raising voting numbers on the other side, which may not have happened without that endorsement,” he explained.
Penn College Republicans Treasurer and Wharton junior Charles Gray, a former Daily Pennsylvanian columnist, said endorsements can help build support for a candidate. For Republican candidates, “I think endorsements from established people who believe in conservative principles definitely help with the base and with independents,” Gray said.
However, according to Gray, most endorsements will not be “pivotal” in this election. “Endorsements can’t overcome your message, what you believe in and the way you vote in Congress,” he said.
Penn Democrats President and College junior Emma Ellman-Golan does not believe endorsements will matter much to students. “Students may listen to the DP endorsement but not really the local papers like the Inquirer,” she said.
One use for political endorsements, according to Ellman-Golan, is to see how similar two candidates are to each other. “For example, Palin stands for this radical Tea Party agenda, so candidates she endorses such as Joe Miller and Christine O’Donnell most likely share that agenda,” she said, referring to U.S. Senate candidates in Alaska and Delaware, respectively.
