Running the numbers: UTM political science prof on how political polls dictate voter behaviour

With less than a week to go before the American presidential election, millions are watching the polls, hoping to divine the future from daily opinion results. One U of T Mississauga researcher has investigated the effects of political polls on voter behaviour. Research by Randy Besco, a post-doctoral fellow with UTM’s Department of Political Science, investigates how candidates who are behind in the polls were viewed by partisan voters, and what effect that might have on voter behaviour.

In his 2016 paper “Partisans and a Social Theory of Poll Effects,” Besco finds that poll results offer a window into how voters see themselves. “Supporting a political candidate is a way for people to self-identify,” he says. “As a supporter, the voter takes on the identity of a group of people they feel like they belong to.” But when a candidate’s popularity is on the wane, it can reflect badly on supporters and change their behaviour. “People prefer voting for winners. Losing says something bad about the party, and by extension, its members and supporters. Nobody likes to identify with a losing group. It says something bad about you.”

One of the factors that can influence behaviour is how much other people know about our political leanings. Broadcasting candidate support with lawn signs, conversations or on social media can become a problem when the candidate starts to slip in the polls. “We really don’t like it when other people know that we support a loser,” Besco says. “We found that partisans who talk a lot about their vote choice are especially sensitive to the effects of negative polls.”

Besco’s research presented U.S. study participants with fictional American election scenarios and asked participants to respond based on political affiliation and scenario polling results. Supporting a losing candidate can have several effects on voters, Besco says. “It can mobilize them to get out and vote, giving them the feeling that their vote might make a difference. Alternately, they might switch their support to another candidate. If a candidate is very far behind, those same voters might feel that their vote doesn’t really count and decide to stay home.”

“No candidate will predict a solid win, and no candidate wants to be perceived as already having lost the election. That’s why politicians always say it’s a close race,” Besco says. “We know that being too far behind the other candidate—about 15 per cent—will discourage voters from supporting the losing candidate. Voters may feel the race is a lost cause. A smaller gap of about three per cent may motivate engaged voters.”

“Because of Internet technology and mechanical polls, it has become very inexpensive to do political polling,” Besco says, noting that Elections Canada prohibits the publication of new election surveys or opinion polls on election day “We see that poll results directly affect voter behaviour, and the effects of polling are a lot more important than they ever have been in the past.”