Research on elections has concentrated on the behavior and choices of individual voters. However, questions about the roles played by candidates and their campaigns as influences on voters typically have been ignored. Yet voter choice can only be understood within the context of a campaign and is properly conceived as a result at least in part of a contest between competing candidates. This innovative research attempts to measure the impact of campaign strategies on voter choice in U.S. Senate elections. Specifically, this research will collect data on the campaign behavior of US Senate candidates in the 1988, 1990 and 1992 elections. Candidate activities and positions will be determined based on newspaper coverage of the campaigns. These data will be merged with data on voter attitudes in these campaigns thus permitting assessments of the extent to which candidate positions are perceived by voters and influence their decisions. When completed this study will greatly enhance our understanding of the impact of campaigns on voter choice including the impact of negative campaigning and of campaigns in which candidates offer choices, not echoes.
