Perception Becoming Reality: The Effects of Framing Polls and Early Primary Election Results on Perceived Electability and Voting Behavior

National polls (and, in the coming weeks, the results of early primaries) present potentially misleading information about presidential primary candidates' chances of winning the eventual nomination. The actual likelihood depends on a several facets of the primary electoral process: how many delegates are assigned by the voters of each state; whether or not a state is winner-take-all; "triggers" and "thresholds" to allocate delegates to particular candidates; when a given state votes during the process. Add to that the effect of whether or not other candidates drop out of the race and who those voters then decide to vote for.

A lot of this can, and has, been modeled. You can model how many people would vote for each candidate in each state (even if there isn't accurate polling data in some states) based on what you know about the relationship between, say, education and likelihood to support a particular candidate. You can know who each voter's second, third, or fourth choice would likely be (i.e., how things will shake out when candidates start dropping out of the race). You can know what the rules are for delegate allocation in each state and how many delegates are in each state. When you take all of this into account, at least for the Republican candidates right now, you end up with a disjuncture between what the polls and what the early primary results will likely be (Trump and Cruz well ahead of Rubio) and who would actually get the most delegates if the primaries were to all be conducted today (Rubio, probably).

The crazy thing about this is that the emphasis on current national polls and early primary results in the  media (which, as far as I'm concerned, is a misleading picture of how people would vote if the primaries were all held today) might change later primary voters' perceptions of the electability of their favored candidate, causing them to abandon that candidate and switch to another one.

Surely, there will be some people voting in later polls who will "stand their ground" and still vote for their favored candidates, regardless of what national polls or early primary elections say. Also, there are many reasons why those voting in later primaries may change their opinion over the coming months: for example they may get more information about the candidates, or their favored candidate may say or do something they don't like. But I think at least one possible cause of switching candidates has to do with perceived electability, and that perceived electability could be based on the misleading information from national polls and early primary results.

So then, how will the misleading information sway voters?

My guess is that Trump and Sanders (and possibly Cruz) will keep referring to the polls and the early primary results, claiming it to be evidence of their electability. They would do this in hopes of a herding effect. For Republicans, people in late-voting states who would've voted for Rubio will see supporting Rubio as supporting a likely loser. Spending time and energy supporting him would be a waste, and possibly embarrassing. This would cause them to abandon Rubio and either fall in line with the herd developing around Trump and/or Cruz (likely due to an "anyone but Hillary" sentiment) or sit out the primary vote altogether. For the Democrats, Hillary supporters residing in late-voting states who were on the fence and perhaps supported Hillary only because they thought Bernie didn't have a shot would think that Bernie did have a shot, and switch over to Bernie.

However, this strategy of emphasizing national polls and early primaries might backfire for Trump. He'll keep saying he's winning and will successfully convince people he's likely to win the nomination, but this might freak other voters out ("oh my god, he could actually win!"). This might cause people who would have sat on the sidelines to vote against him. It might cause wealthy donors to throw more money at Cruz or Rubio. It might cause other candidates to drop out sooner and endorse Cruz or Rubio. Call this the "panic mode" reaction to the perception that Trump could win.

There are, of course, many X factors that could swing the election: the economy tanks, someone says something stupid, scandals, terrorist attacks, etc. But I think one factor is whether people think national polls and early primary results predict eventual electability. And whether people think this depends on what they hear both from the candidates themselves and from the news.

The news will likely present a "horse-race" framing of the election, not because they want Trump or Cruz or Sanders to win, but because they want a close race, because it's a simpler story, and because this will boost ratings. There is a chance that some news outlets (I'm looking at you, NPR and NYTimes) will try to convey the complex relationship between staggered primaries with various delegate allocation rules and public opinion. I think the likelihood of any of the above scenarios playing out depends on whether news outlets use the simple, misleading frame or the more nuanced one.