How voters assess elite-educated politicians: A survey experiment

Citation:

Thomas Gift and Carlos Lastra-Anadón. 2018. “How voters assess elite-educated politicians: A survey experiment.” Electoral Studies, 56, Pp. 136-149. Publisher's Version

Abstract:

Are politicians with elite backgrounds more electable? In this article, we test whether being an elite is a net positive or negative in running for public o ce via an original survey experiment that manipulates one of the most salient indicators of eliteness in American life: university education. We nd that liberals, but not con- servatives, perceive politicians who attended elite schools to be more competent. Meanwhile, conservatives, but not liberals, perceive politicians who attended elite schools to be less relatable. On average, citizens are mildly, but not signi cantly, less inclined to vote for elite-educated politicians. By embedding treatments in our survey for whether politicians came from advantaged or disadvantaged upbringings, we also con rm that our results do not entirely re ect generic attitudes toward economically privileged candidates.

Last updated on 12/03/2020