11:20 - 13:00
P12-S300
Room: 0A.04
Chair/s:
Isabelle Guinaudeau
Discussant/s:
Silja Haeusermann
Do People Value Bipartisan Messages? The Case of Democratic and Republican Endorsements of Fossil Fuel Pipelines
P12-S300-3
Presented by: Dean Lacy
Dean Lacy
Dartmouth
Do people oppose policies supported by the other party as much as they support policies supported by their own? In two preregistered information experiments, samples of US residents were presented with messages that Donald Trump and Joe Biden (Kamala Harris in experiment 2) support or oppose the Mountain Valley Natural Gas Pipeline. All respondents read messages from both parties. Respondents were randomly assigned to reading that both Biden and Trump support the pipeline, both oppose the pipeline, Trump supports and Biden (or Harris) opposes, or Trump opposes and Biden (or Harris) supports. The experiment tests whether respondents' support for the pipeline is lower when the outparty supports the pipeline, conditional on their inparty either supporting or opposing the pipeline. The results from experiment 1 show that the message from the out party has no effect on partisans' support for the pipeline. Only inparty messages affect partisan support for the pipeline. Self-identified independents show greater approval of the pipeline when both parties endorse it. The results confirm that partisans do not value bipartisan messages, nor does negative partisanship affect public attitudes toward the pipeline. The paper will further test whether support from Biden or Harris has greater effect on public opinion toward the pipeline and whether support from Trump in September 2023 or September 2024 has a greater effect on public opinion toward the pipeline.
Keywords: political parties, partisanship, US politics, elite endorsements, public opinion, energy, environment, pipelines

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