How do clientelistic appeals affect voters' expectations of politicians' future performance? This paper examines this question, focusing on three dimensions of clientelism: the existence of cash or other goods at election time (often termed 'vote-buying'), the promise of future targeted benefits, and the degree of contingency involved. It employs a conjoint experiment, embedded in a unique survey of over 12,000 respondents in Malawi and Zambia, focus group discussions and observational data. We find that clientelistic behaviors during an election campaign have a greater impact on voters' perceptions of the candidates' future performance than it does on their willingness to support the candidate at the polls. Voters are less likely to have confidence in candidates offering handouts, seeing them as more likely to be corrupt, less likely to provide services, and less likely to mobilize resources; they prefer future promises of targeted future assistance over club goods, but they do not believe that candidates are likely to actually follow through on this promise; and they dislike explicitly contingent offers of service provision in exchange for political support. These findings draw into question expectations that handouts signal future service provision (e.g., the 'big man' hypothesis) and suggest that clientelism affects not only election outcomes, but citizens' confidence in their elected officials.