Endorsement could make a difference

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 15/09/2023 (747 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

So far in the provincial election campaign, we’ve seen two high-profile endorsements, both of NDP leader Wab Kinew.

This week, former premier Gary Doer endorsed Kinew. While Doer successfully charmed some nostalgic local observers, it’s far from obvious that a former NDP leader endorsing the current NDP leader will do much to move votes. Would former premier Gary Filmon’s endorsement of Premier Heather Stefanson make much of a difference for her support?

The second endorsement of Kinew, from former Liberal cabinet minister and University of Winnipeg president Lloyd Axworthy, is more intriguing. The NDP apparently believes the endorsement has great value because the party paid to plaster Axworthy’s letter of support on the front page of the Free Press on the first day of the official campaign.

It’s clear the NDP hopes to collapse Liberal support in this campaign, ensuring the PCs cannot be re-elected in part on the basis of a split left-of-centre vote. The endorsement from a high-profile former Liberal minister is seen as one way to achieve this.

(The NDP has also recruited a strong candidate with deep roots in the community to run against Liberal leader Dougald Lamont in his St. Boniface constituency. Robert Loiselle will certainly give the Liberal leader a run for his money.)

Lamont’s response to the endorsement letter was to point out that Axworthy lives in Ontario, not Manitoba, so “he’s got no skin in the game” in the provincial election. In response, Axworthy sputtered that Manitoba remained his “spiritual home.” While I would like to make some popcorn to munch on while watching this Liberal family drama play out, it’s unlikely Lamont’s response will do much to short-circuit the impact of Axworthy’s endorsement.

But this raises the questions: do endorsements have an impact? Do they really matter in shaping the choices’ voters make? Or do they just provide entertainment for the spectators of politics? If they do make a difference, why is that?

Lots of things can determine who voters decide to cast their ballots for. This includes background characteristics including things like income, evaluations of leaders and parties, and assessments of the incumbent government. These and other factors come together to determine vote choice, and the combination of factors that are relevant differs between individuals.

Endorsements are one thing that are dropped into the stew of influences on vote choice.

But we also know that endorsements influence vote choice in a particular way: by acting as a heuristic, or an informational shortcut, for voters.

The logic of heuristics is that people have busy lives and so cannot go out and fully research who to vote for before casting their ballots. Instead, they look for shortcuts to help them figure out how to make this choice. There are many such shortcuts. Some people look at polls released during campaigns and vote for the candidates who are out in front. Others use the appearance of candidates as a shortcut to help them decide their vote.

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One study demonstrated that Canadian voters assess party leaders partly on the basis of their socioeconomic similarity to them. These voters respond negatively to increased socioeconomic distance between them and the party leaders. Needless to say, deciding to vote for a candidate because he or she looks like me is a remarkable shortcut. But people often employ these heuristics when making decisions about who to vote for.

Similarly, endorsements are excellent shortcuts that help people save time in coming to a decision on who to cast their ballots for. If someone they like or admire endorses a party or candidate, that can provide voters with a time-saving shortcut to decide who to vote for.

This is particularly true for people with less knowledge about politics. People with high knowledge have less need for informational shortcuts. But people with less knowledge tend to rely on heuristics to make up for their lack of knowledge, and to ensure they don’t have to go to search for information in order to make a good decision.

So Manitobans who have a positive impression of either Doer or Axworthy might well read about their endorsements of Kinew and use them as a heuristic to determine that voting NDP is the way to go. This will be particularly true for low-information voters.

While some Manitobans of all political stripes are likely to have a positive impression of Axworthy, it’s not much of a stretch to suspect that Liberals have a particularly positive view of him. So you can understand why the NDP shelled out for that front-page ad. One can imagine some voters, especially traditional Liberal voters, thinking to themselves, “if Lloyd is okay with Wab, then I guess I am too.”