Partisan Influence in Suspicious Times

Abstract

Parties can significantly influence their supporters' policy views via endorsement cues, raising worries about manipulation of mass opinion. We bring attention to a novel constraint on party influence: information implying that the party adopted its position due to the lobbying efforts of interest groups and campaign donors. Party cue taking is significantly reduced across three survey experiment when this type of information is presented alongside a party endorsement cue. This attenuation in cue taking occurred both when the party adopted a stereotypical as well as a counterstereotypical policy position and both when ideologically aligned and nonaligned groups were the source of lobbyist influence. Moreover, partisans were less likely to follow the party line even though they still believed the party's policy arguments to be superior to opposing arguments and that the policy would yield positive outcomes. Our results suggest a novel and common limit on partisan influence.