Early v. Election-Day Voters: A Media Profile

Abstract

The researcher conducted a secondary analysis of three major surveys of voters: the 2008 National Annenberg Election Survey, and the 2007 and 2008 Cooperative Congressional Election Surveys. All three of these surveys had media components, making it possible to create a profile of significant media differences between Election Day voters and those who vote early.

Early voters, contrasted to those on Election Day, are super citizens—the kind of extremely likely voters campaigns seek out and contact. Early voters (at p < .0001 level of significance) were more likely to be contacted by campaigns by both mail and e-mail, and at a p < .05 level of significance were more likely to be contacted by campaigns face-to-face and by phone.

Early voters, compared to election-day voters, are more likely to mention News and Documentary among their top-four favorite types of TV programs, and less likely to mention Science Fiction, Comedies, Reality Shows, and Music Videos. The only tested programs significantly favored by Election Day voters over their Early Voting counterparts were: The Simpsons, Scrubs, and Family Guy. A long list of news, documentary, news talk, and news satire programs, however, tend to be favored more by early voters than by those who vote on Election Day. Early voters were more likely than Election Day voters to listen to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered news program, and to listen to news gabbers such as Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Neal Boortz, Mike Gallagher, Clark Howard, Bill Bennett, and Dr. Laura Schlesinger.

Keywords: Voters, early voting, advertising, media, news