Hello from the other side; I'll compromise a thousand times : how minority party governors win unlikely elections

Despite increasing nationalization and polarization in state politics, some blue states continue to elect Republican governors, while some red states continue to elect Democratic governors. These minority party governors are out of step with their state's mass ideology and partisanship when research on public opinion and voting behavior suggests that it should be fairly easy for voters to elect officials that match their own ideology by using partisan cues and other information shortcuts. How do these governors win elections and maintain relatively high approval ratings? This dissertation uses data and text from gubernatorial social media accounts from 2009 through 2017 to argue that minority party governors are able to defy electoral odds by distancing themselves from their national party, through the use of language to downplay their partisan identity and ideological moderation, and then emphasize non-ideological valence issues such as the economy, good governance, and public health to shift the focus from issues that are highly partisan.

Name thesis:degree_name

Doctoral

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Political Science

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2019

Author dc:creator

• Goldberg, Megan Elizabeth.

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Adam Berinsky.

• Political Science.

Statement dc:rights

• MIT theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed, downloaded, or printed from this source but further reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123634

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/123634