Association for Public Policy Analysis & Management

Local candidates vie for endorsements, particularly from partisan elites and leading local interest groups. Candidates are especially eager to win the support of well-known local groups (such as the Democratic Party and Sierra Club). Previous research suggests that such endorsements are likely to matter the most among voters who have less knowledge about local elections. Partisan endorsements, especially, can reduce the incumbency advantage by providing more information to marginal voters. However, to what extent can partisan endorsements override localized self-interest or counteract the effect of candidates' known issue positions? How do partisan elite endorsements weigh against other local endorsements, such as support from neighborhood associations? We present observational and experimental data on the effects of the local endorsements. First, we report data on publicly claimed endorsements from viable local candidates in municipal in the San Francisco Bay Area, showing that party and partisan elite endorsements have minimal effect on candidate performance. We present results from a national online conjoint analysis in which partisan, interest-group, and neighborhood association endorsements appear alongside candidate issue positions. While previous scholarship has shown that partisan endorsements can matter to candidate assessments, we find that they matter much less when candidates take clear positions on locally contentious issues, or when local groups (such as pro-homeowner neighborhood groups) take clear positions for or against a candidate. Our findings suggest that multiple factors work to insulate local voters from the partisan polarization measured around national and state elections.