2024 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN EVENTS: DO THEY MATTER?

Abstract

Do presidential campaign events influence how people vote? Do campaign events impact polling margins? If not, why would presidential candidates and their campaign teams hold hundreds of campaign events in the fall leading up to Election Day? Political science research about the effect of presidential campaign events on election phenomena is mixed. This study examines the relationship between campaign events and average polling margins, at the state level, and vote margins, at the county level, in the 2024 presidential election. This study finds: (1) support for Hypothesis 1 that in a close race, as reflected in the polls, candidates work harder via campaign events in competitive states with a relatively high number of electoral votes; (2) that with respect to Hypothesis 2, the results did not find clear support that within battleground states, candidates hold campaign events where average polling margins are close. Instead, the study finds that for a few states, specifically Michigan, Wisconsin, and perhaps Pennsylvania, there is a moderate to weak correlation that there are fewer campaign events when the margin is larger. However, when the individual battleground state regressions were performed, generally in most states, there was no statistically significant relationship between polling margins and the number of campaign events in the week before the poll or the week following the poll, with few exceptions. With respect to Hypothesis 3, the study did not find clear support that the number of campaign events in a given county had a positive affect on vote margin at the county level. Instead, the regression results may have been affected by selection bias or the tight one-week time frame applied to measure the data.