Timing of political messages influences voter preferences, U of Minnesota researcher finds

As the choice nears voters put more weight on the details

In political campaigns, timing is almost everything. Candidates communicate with voters over a long period of time before voters actually vote. What candidates say to these voters is, of course, important, but it turns out that when they say it also influences voter preferences.

Why Obama's reliance on lofty rhetoric has succeeded thus far is a puzzle addressed in the paper "It's Time to Vote: The Effect of Matching Message Orientation and Temporal Frame on Political Persuasion," forthcoming in the Journal of Consumer Research. The research, co-authored by the University of Minnesota's Akshay Rao, Hakkyun Kim (Concordia) and Angela Lee (Northwestern), demonstrates that the timing and content of political messages affects voters, particularly swing voters.