partisan drives are primarily aimed at the base, but we are less certain of how successful the
parties actually are in locating their base. In addition, we ask whether partisan messages, which
seek both to mobilize core supporters and to persuade at the margins, affect vote choice.
We draw on two data sets. The first is the 2004 American National Election Study
(ANES). While the ANES survey is limited in its coverage of mobilization efforts–it asks about
contact from a party and from non-partisan groups but does not distinguish between different
kinds of contact or different kinds of groups-its strength is that it encompasses a random national
sample and provides us with some baseline results. The second source of data is the Miami Exit
Poll, also administered in 2004, of voters in Miami-Dade county. This survey included detailed
questions about the incidence and nature of partisan and non-partisan contact during the election.
It thus allows us to build a profile of who is mobilized and by which methods. This has
important normative implications. It is known, for example, that in-person contact is more
effective than a phone call or direct mail. Thus, to the extent that we see systematic differences
in the individuals parties target, beyond obvious ones such as partisanship, we are also seeing
how modern campaign practices foster systematic inequalities in the electorate.
We find that the major parties seem to be very efficient in targeting likely supporters.
Few individuals who are mobilized exclusively by one party go on to vote for the other party’s
candidate. We also find confirmatory evidence that mobilization efforts stimulate turnout. But
there appears to be a racial dimension to the quality of partisan mobilization from which
individuals benefit. White voters are more likely to receive the kind of in-person attention from
the parties that is most effective. We also show, however, that other races and ethnicities are
more involved in face-to-face contact about the election from non-partisan groups. Finally, we
uncover evidence that partisan mobilization, particularly phone contact, has differential effects
on vote choice.
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Convention