Problem Addressed
Endorsements are a staple of local campaigning, particularly when voters know little about the people on the ballot. Yet endorsements come in many forms: they can come from ordinary residents or well-known local figures, be signed or anonymous, and talk about a candidate’s character or their track record. Campaigners rarely know which of these choices makes a real difference.
Approach & Implementation
Campaign Lab ran an online survey experiment with UK voters. Participants were shown endorsements for fictional candidates standing in their own local area and asked how they rated them. Each endorsement was randomly varied in three ways: who gave it, whether that person was named, and whether it focused on the candidate’s personal qualities or on things they had done locally. Party labels and national politics were kept out so that the endorsement itself was the focus.
Findings
The clearest result was that substance matters most. Endorsements describing specific, tangible local work made candidates seem considerably more capable and trustworthy, and made voters much more likely to choose them. Endorsements from community figures gave only a modest boost, and naming the endorser did not help.
Implications for Campaigners
For local campaigns, the message appears to matter more than the messenger. Showing voters what a candidate has already delivered is likely to be more persuasive than describing what kind of person they are. As this was a controlled online study, the next step is to test whether the pattern holds in live campaigns.
These findings are preliminary. A full paper is forthcoming.