VICE PRESIDENT WHO?

Media Coverage and Public Opinion in the 2016 Election

Stacy G. Ulbig

Department of Political Science

Sam Houston State University SHSU Box 2149

Huntsville, TX 77341-2149

936.294.1468 ulbig@shsu.edu

ABSTRACT

How did media coverage of Tim Kaine and Mike Pence during the 2016 election affect the public’s

evaluation of the bottom of them? Previous research suggests that when vice presidential candidates

receive more, and particularly more negative, coverage, voters’ evaluations of the candidates come to

influence their voting decisions more. Further, candidates possessing unique characteristics tend to

receive the most critical media coverage, and consequently have the largest impact on voters. The

galvanizing nature of the 2016 presidential candidates combined with the prototypical characteristics of

their running mates, however, suggests that voters were likely to have few distinct impressions of Pence

and Kaine. The analyses presented in this paper examine the connection between the amount and nature

of media coverage Pence and Kaine received over the course of the 2016 general election campaign and

the public’s assessment of them. Findings confirm the expectation that the media attention given to the

vice presidential candidates did little to influence the public’s perceptions of them in the shadow of their

more influential running mates.

Paper presented at the annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association. Chicago, IL: April

6-9, 2017.

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It stands as a truism in American presidential elections that vice presidential candidates matter little

to most voters. Journalists typically see vice presidents (VPs) as nothing more than “frosting on the cake”

and not “game changers.” Academics tend to ignore them as well, with variables related to the vice president

rarely making an appearance in presidential election models. Yet previous research suggests that when vice

presidential candidates receive more, and particularly the more negative, coverage, voters’ evaluations of

the candidates come to influence their voting decisions more. And candidates possessing unique

characteristics tend to have the largest impact on voters because they attract more, and more critical, media

coverage. So despite the conventional wisdom, vice presidential candidates can make impressions on

voters, sometimes enough to affect their decisions in the voting booth.

Approaching the 2016 election with these things in mind, I examined the connection between the

amount and nature of media coverage vice presidential candidates Pence and Kaine received over the

course of the campaign and the public’s assessment of them. Given previous research findings, I did not

anticipate strong media effects emerging in this election. Rather I expected the riveting personalities of

the 2016 presidential candidates to show a stronger relationship with public opinion of their running

mates, especially if there was a relative paucity of compelling vice presidential coverage. Findings

confirm the expectation that the media attention given to the vice presidential candidates did little to

influence the public’s perceptions of them in the wake of their astronomically high profile running mates.

The Value of Vice Presidential Candidates

Researchers tend to assert that electoral imperatives compel the selection of vice presidential

candidates (Hiller & Kriner, 2008; see also Goldstein, 1982; Natoli, 1985; Polsby & Wildavsky, 1991;

Sigelman & Wahlbeck, 1997). In fact, those filling out the bottom of the ticket have been viewed as largely

expendable once the election ends. Some even felt that “[i]f elected, the vice president could look forward

to being replaced four years later” when a different vice presidential candidate might prove more electorally

advantageous (Nelson, 1988, p. 859). Creating a balanced ticket to attract voters has been seen as the key

factor in vice presidential candidate selection (e.g., Goldstein, 1982; Natoli, 1985; Nelson, 1988; Polsby &

Wildavsky, 1991; Pomper, 1963). Balancing a presidential candidate’s age, experience, ideology, gender,

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race, religion, or state or regional affiliation, for instance, typically motivates these selections

(Baumgartner, 2008; Bryce, 1893; Goldstein, 1982; Hiller & Kriner, 2008; Hurwitz, 1980; Mayer, 2000;

Sigelman & Wahlbeck, 1997; Watson & Yon, 2006).

Though many put appreciable effort into explaining and forecasting the selection of vice

presidential candidates, research on the importance of vice presidential nominees to voters has been

relatively sparse and offers, at best, mixed findings. Some studies see little electoral impact emanating from

the bottom of the ticket, pointing to no more than a small vice presidential home state advantage (Campbell,

1992; Dudley & Rapoport, 1989; Holbrook, 1991; Rosenstone, 1983) or vote choice effect (Frankovic,

1984; Romero, 2004). Others counter that feelings about VP candidates do exert influence on some voters’

decisions (Adkison, 1982; Wattenberg, 1984, 1995), pointing to a small (2% to 2.5%) “home state bump”

in votes attributable to the bottom of the ticket (Campbell, Ali, & Jalazai, 2006; Garand, 1988; Holbrook,

1991; Lewis-Beck & Rice, 1983; Rosen-stone, 1983).

Still, researchers and pundits alike tend to paint vice presidential candidates as largely irrelevant to

voters by the time they enter the voting booth, and there are good reasons to believe that vice presidential

candidates should not play much of a role in shaping voter opinion and decision making. Since the media

typically pay far less attention to vice presidential candidates than to their presidential running mates (Ulbig

2010), voters probably have no more than scant information about the bottom of the ticket. Even the

spotlight of a vice presidential debate appears to not “do much at all to alter the political landscape”

(Holbrook, 1996, p. 109), with any impression the candidates make on voters evaporating long before

Election Day. In fact, some have suggested “a 72-hour rule of thumb for running mates: if they are still on

the front page three days after their nomination, it means there’s a problem” (Turque, Isikoff, Hosenball,

Bai, & Barry, 2000, p. 29). Voters report much the same when asked about the bottom of the ticket in

opinion surveys, with only about 8% to 15% of the electorate typically saying that the vice presidential

candidate was an important consideration for them when they cast their ballot (Frankovic, 1984;

Wattenberg, 1995).

Still, some vice presidential candidates have been shown to exert an electoral impact on certain

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segments of the electorate (Ulbig 2013). Heightened media attention to the bottom of the ticket has

historically created a context within which those voters most susceptible to media and campaign messages

have formed distinct impressions of the vice presidential candidates and allowed those feelings influence

their self-reported vote choice. For example, voter sentiment about Geraldine Ferraro, Joe Lieberman, and

Sarah Palin exhibited sizable impacts on the predicted vote choices of independent voters. The voluminous,

intense media coverage, particularly the negative media attention to their competency, political experience,

and/or intelligence, appears to have been most strongly related to their electoral impacts.

Thus, there are good reasons to believe that when the media spends more time covering vice

presidential candidates, voters can better form potentially influential opinions about them. Media attention

to the bottom of the ticket certainly fluctuates over the course of a campaign, but there are at least two

moments in the campaign when the media concentrate on VP candidates—at convention time when the

nominees are announced and when they participate in televised debates (Romero, 2004). Furthermore, the

media have increasingly covered the presidential ticket as a team. Consequently, “[i]t is reasonable to

hypothesize that, because voters are exposed to a two-person team, the popularity of each player should

have an impact on their vote decisions” (Wattenberg, 1995, p. 505).

Theoretically, then, it seems that feelings about vice presidential candidates are likely to be more

clearly formed, and thus electorally important, at some times than others. Elections in which the media

offers little coverage of a vice presidential candidate afford voters little opportunity to form opinions about

him/her that stand apart from their impressions of the top of the ticket. Conversely, in those times when the

media readily present VP candidates to the public, voters are better able to develop feelings about them

independent of their feelings about the presidential candidates. Importantly, though, the media finds some

candidates more attractive than others. Vice presidential candidates who are somehow “newsworthy,” that

is, they offer a story that is unique and compelling, such as being an improbable candidate, being new to

the national political scene, possessing a unique characteristic or shortcoming, being involved in scandal,

and so on, typically prove especially attractive.

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Casting an eye toward the 2016 presidential election, these findings suggest that the public should

have been better able to express opinions about vice presidential candidates Pence and Kaine at times

when the media provided more information about the bottom of the tickets. Further, existing research

would predict that the tint of the media coverage should have colored voter opinion of them as well. Thus,

if 2016 had offered a typical election, we might expect increased media coverage of the vice presidential

nominees to be associated with lower levels of unformed opinion about the candidates, and that the nature

of the coverage should affect the impressions formed. More positive coverage that is positive should

correlate with opinion that is more favorable while less favorable impressions should accompany negative

coverage.

The “Dumpster Fire” Election of 2016

The 2016 presidential contest, however, was anything but typical. The contest between Donald

Trump and Hillary Clinton offered voters “one of the most shocking U.S. elections in modern political

history” (Berenson 2016) and was compared to a dumpster fire by Former CBS News anchor Dan

Rather.1 Despite voter distaste for the presidential candidates, both grabbed media headlines and the

public’s attention at levels rarely seen in recent elections. By the start of the 2016 primary election

season, the public knew both of the eventual presidential nominees well. Clinton’s history as first lady,

U.S. Senator, 2008 presidential primary candidate, and Secretary of State had kept her name in headlines

for nearly a quarter of a century. Similarly, Trump’s years as a real estate mogul, businessman, and

television personality placed him in the public eye for at least as long. Despite, or perhaps because of,

their visibility, both nominees went into the general election campaign with ardent admirers as well as

fervent detractors. Both candidates also offered voters something unusual in a presidential candidate.

Never, before Clinton, had a former first lady been elected to office, nor had one been appointed to a

position as high within the executive branch. And though others having no history of service in elected

1 Rather made the comment on November 7, 2016, in an appearance on CNN’s New Day.

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public office, the military, or government had made bids for the nation’s highest office, no such person

before Trump had received a major party’s nomination.

At the same time, their running mates offered little in the way of publicized pasts or

distinctiveness. Both had followed fairly common trajectories to arrive at the vice presidential

nomination. Clinton tapped Tim Kaine, the junior Senator from Virginia, as her running mate. Kaine had

previously held a number of elected offices, having served as mayor, lieutenant governor, and governor.

Trump’s running mate, Mike Pence, had served as U.S. Congressman and Governor of Indiana. Both had

also been active in their respective parties, with Pence serving as chairman of the House Republican

Conference and Kaine taking on the role of chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Demographically, both represent typical vice presidential nominees. Both are middle aged, law-degreed,

white males whose religious faiths do not depart from those of most previous candidates.

Taken in the context of previous research, the galvanizing nature of the 2016 presidential

candidates combined with the prototypical characteristics of their running mates, suggests that the media

likely concentrated its energy on the tickets’ headliners and gave the supporting players little attention.

Voters were likely to have few distinct impressions of Pence and Kaine going into the general election.

Therefore, I expect media coverage of VPs to show little relationship with the public’s sentiment about

Pence and Kaine themselves. Rather, I expect public opinion about the bottom of the tickets to be more

closely associated with feelings about Trump and Clinton.

Data and Measures

I tested these hypotheses using a dataset built from publicly available survey data, newspaper

database archives, and an original content analysis of a sample of news content. I collected candidate

approval data from the Huffington Post Pollster webpage.2 Pollster provides a summary of representative

public opinion survey results collected by numerous polling houses employing varying data collection

2 For access to this data or more information about the surveys reported on the site, see:

http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster.

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methodologies. Their focus on trial heat polls for relevant candidates provides a readily available source

of credible polling data at frequent intervals over the general election season. I used the Newsbank/Readex

library database to gather information on media coverage of the candidates.3 This database offers access

to a comprehensive collection of news reported in a variety of formats, including print and online-only

newspapers, blogs, newswires, journals, broadcast transcripts and videos. Finally, I conducted a content

analysis of a random sample of AP Newswire Service reports about the 2016 vice presidential candidates

over the course of the general campaign. The Associated Press is an independent, not-for-profit news

cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers and radio and television stations in the United States,

all of which contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists providing content

to more than 15,000 news outlets, including print and broadcast media producers. As such it offers a

reasonably representative sample of the information voters were likely to receive from a range of media

sources.

I take public opinion about each vice presidential candidate as my dependent variable. I measure

public approval of these candidates using poll results from candidate favorability questions, which track

the degree to which the public holds an opinion about each candidate and whether any existing impression

of the candidate is favorable or not. As reported in Table 1, I collected favorability ratings for each of the

2016 presidential and vice presidential candidates between the nomination period (beginning at the time

of the respective party’s national convention) and Election Day.4 In total, I collected information from 57

polls over a period of 16 weeks for Kaine and ratings from 64 polls over 17 weeks for Pence. In addition,

I collected seventeen additional weeks of post-election data on Pence.5 With a mean margin of error of

3 For information about Readex, a division of Newsbank, see: http://www.readex.com/who-we-are-what-we-do.

4 Start and end dates of pre-election data collection were determined by the first available vice presidential candidate

poll and Election Day (between July 23 and November 4, 2016, for Clinton and Kaine, and July 13 and November 4,

2016, for Trump and Pence). The Clinton/Kaine pre-election period is one week shorter than that of Trump/Pence

because the Republican Party’s National Convention was held one week before the Democratic Party’s.

5 I collected information from 50 post-election polls covering the period from November 9, 2016, to March 6, 2017.

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2.89 (std. dev: 0.85), all polling data is from non-partisan polling houses and more than half (53.3%) of

the polls were conducted using live phone interviews.6 Adults residing in the United States constituted

the sample subpopulations for about 61% of the polls, while registered voters (30%) and likely voters

(9%) were sampled in the others.

[Table 1 about here]

I take the percentage of respondents reporting neither a favorable nor an unfavorable impression

of each candidate as a measure of unformed opinion about each candidate, vice presidential and

presidential alike. I also calculated a net favorability rating for each candidate by subtracting the reported

information about the percentage of respondents to each poll who reported viewing the candidate

unfavorably from the percentage of those reporting him or her favorably (i.e., % favorable - %

unfavorable). Thus, higher values on this measure indicate a more favorable rating. Taking the mean of

these measures of unformed opinion and net favorability ratings, I aggregated the data to the candidate-

week level based on poll start date to create weekly candidate opinion ratings for each vice presidential

and presidential candidate.7

I report descriptive statistics for all public opinion measures in Table 2. Unsurprisingly, unformed

opinion about the vice presidential candidates was much higher than that about the presidential

candidates. While about a third of respondents reported not having an impression of Tim Kaine (35.5%)

and Mike Pence (30.8%), less than five percent said the same about Hillary Clinton (3.8%) and Donald

Trump (4.4%). Even in the post-election period, the public reported having more strongly formed

opinions about Trump than Pence. Given the remarkable distaste with which the public held both

presidential candidates, it is also not startling to see the disparity in net favorability ratings between the

top and bottom of the tickets either. Both presidential candidates netted, on average, negative favorability

6 Data from internet surveys comprised another 45.2% of the polling data, while the remainder were either automated (0.9%) or interactive voice recognition/online (0.6%) polls. 7 All weeks begin on Wednesday and run through the following Tuesday (i.e., 1st week = Wednesday, July 13 –

Tuesday, July 19). I aggregated all polls starting in a week to that week, even if they were not completed in that

week.

8

ratings over the general election campaign season, with the public’s expressed dislike of Clinton (-13.2)

being about twice as large as that of Trump (-6.08). In contrast, both Kaine and Pence appear to have

made marginally positive impressions on the public (average net favorability ratings of 1.40 and 5.14,

respectively).

[Table 2 about here]

I took three different news volume measures as my key independent variables when modeling the

effects of volume of coverage and presidential coattails. I first used the total number of AP Newswire

Service stories reported by Readex/Newsbank during each week. As shown on the last two rows of Table

2, the print media focused its attention overwhelmingly on each ticket’s headliners during the general

election campaign. Clinton and Trump garnered about three times as many stories as their running mates.8

This pattern becomes even more pronounced for Vice President Pence in the post-election period, during

which he merits attention in less than one-sixth as many stories as the newly elected president.

I supplemented this information with two measures of media volume based on the content of a

subset of the total AP news stories reported.9 I randomly selected 10% of each month’s news coverage for

each candidate (i.e., 10% of the stories about Kaine in July, 10% about him in August, etc., and the same

for Pence) for coding. In total, 154 stories about Kaine and 240 about Pence were coded.10 The mean

number of words contained in each week’s stories and the mean intensity level of the coverage of the

candidate in this subset of stories serve as two additional measures of the volume of news coverage.

Based on the results of the content analysis (reported in Table 3), the print media appears to have

treated the vice presidential candidates comparably. The length of stories about the candidates, as

8 The level of vice presidential news coverage is about typical of most VPs since the 1970s (Ulbig 2013).

9 I identified stories about each candidate by searching the database for the candidate’s name during the designated

time periods. Searches were made on all versions of the candidates’ names (e.g., “Mike Pence,” “Michael Richard Pence”; “Michael R. Pence”; “Pence”). Clinton searches were also conducted for versions of former president Bill

Clinton’s name and any stories referencing only him, and not candidate Hillary Clinton, were excluded.

10 See Appendices for details on story selection and content coding.

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indicated by number of words, is roughly equivalent, as is the intensity of coverage. While stories about

Kaine were a bit longer than those about Pence (mean number of words: Kaine=1,609; Pence=1,536), the

media more intensely focused on Pence, though only slightly so. With a mean intensity rating of 1.12 (on

the three-point scale), Kaine appears to have drawn very little coverage in the stories mentioning him,

while Pence merits slightly more with a 1.41 coverage intensity level, on average.

[Table 3 about here]

Turning more specifically to the media image of each vice presidential candidate, which serves as

the key independent variable in the test of the second hypothesis, the remaining content measures begin to

suggest some dissimilitude. Though coders rated newswire stories of Pence more negatively in terms of

overall tone of stories, overall candidate image, and in discussions of particular traits, independent

samples comparison of means tests reveal that only the differences in candidate ratings on honesty and

experience are statistically significant. In particular, the media’s treatment of Pence’s political experience

and honesty lags well behind that of his counterpart’s. Perhaps the relative experience of their running

mates can explain the pronounced differences here. While Clinton’s experience in office might have led

the media to be less questioning of Kaine’s readiness for office, Trump’s dearth of explicit political

experience, and the consequent importance of his running mate’s capabilities, might have led the media to

give Pence’s record more critical treatment. Despite these differences the newswire stories analyzed

offered generally neutral to favorable coverage of both VP candidates.

Analyses and Findings

To explore the relationship between media coverage and public opinion, I first regressed the

degree to which the public expresses an opinion about vice presidential candidates on the volume of

media content to test the hypothesis that a higher volume of media coverage would be associated with less

unformed opinion. I next tested the hypothesis that more favorable opinion would accompany more

positive media coverage by regressing vice presidential favorability on measures of media content.

Finally, I tested the hypothesis that media attention to and public opinion about the top of the tickets

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would relate to impressions of the vice presidential candidates by regressing vice presidential favorability

on presidential media coverage and favorability.

Hypothesis 1: Volume of Media Coverage

Table 4 displays the results of an OLS regression taking the percentage of survey respondents

saying they were “undecided” about whether they held a favorable view of the candidate or not as my

dependent variable and the number and length of news stories, and intensity of coverage of the candidate

as my independent variables. I also control for the week of the campaign and the post-vice presidential

debate period with the expectation that as the campaign progressed, and especially after the vice

presidents squared off in a televised debate, the public was likely to have more information about them

regardless of the volume of media coverage. Model I examines both candidates and suggests that, as

might be expected, at times of intense vice presidential media coverage, fewer members of the public are

without expressible opinions about the candidates. Neither the sheer number nor length of stories,

however, shows a relationship with the formation of public opinion when looking at the pooled data in

Model I.

[Table 4 about here]

Turning to each candidate individually, there seem to be different media effects at play. The

intensity of the coverage Kaine received shows a relationship with marginally lower levels of public

uncertainty about him. The coefficient for this variable suggests that very intense coverage of Kaine is

associated with about 2.3% more members of the public being able to say if they feel favorably toward

him (or not) than when coverage is at the typical level.11 The same cannot be said with regard to Pence,

for whom intensity of coverage is unrelated to opinion formation. Alternatively, the public’s ability to

form an impression of him might be related to the overall number of stories about him that are available,

though this effect operates opposite of expectations, the coefficient is only marginally significant, and the

11 Substantive impact calculated using the regression coefficient presented in Model III on Table 4. Intensity of

coverage was increased by one standard deviation over the mean to estimate this effect.

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predicted substantive impact small. The model indicates that for fifty additional news stories about Pence,

approximately 2.7% more members of the public are able to express an opinion about him.12

While both control variables perform in the expect manner, only the post-debate period seems to

exert a significant impact on voter opinion formation. The results of the pooled model (model I) suggest

that as the campaign progressed, more people formed opinions of the candidates, and while the

coefficients remain negative in separate candidate models, they are not statistically significant. The post-

debate period, however, does exhibit a consistently negative, statistically significant relationship with

public opinion. The public was substantially more able to express an opinion about the candidates

following the debate and the estimated effect is slightly stronger for Pence than Kaine. Using the

coefficients presented in models II and III, I estimate that about 15% more people were able to express an

opinion about Pence and about 12% about Kaine following the debate.13 Importantly, this effect holds

even in the presence of measures of media attention, suggesting that campaign events unrelated to

campaign coverage of the vice presidential candidates largely accounts for the increased opinion

formation.

Hypothesis 2: Content of Coverage

Turning next to the content of the media’s vice presidential coverage, Table 5 presents the results

of a multiple regression taking candidate net favorability as my dependent variable and the number and

nature of coverage of the candidate as my independent variables. Higher values of all independent

variables indicate more positive coverage of the candidate(s), thus the traditional hypothesis would

predict positive relationships for all measures. The remarkably few significant relationships represents

perhaps the most striking feature of these results. In the first model examining both candidates, only

media treatment of the candidates’ honesty appears to be even marginally related to the favorability with

12 Both of the effects discussed here equal about one-half of a standard deviation on the respective VP candidate’s

net favorability rating.

13 The standardized coefficients also document the stronger post-debate effects.

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which the public held Pence and Kaine, and the substantive impact for this coefficient is small. The model

coefficients suggest that a very positive treatment of candidate honesty is predicted to be associated with

only about a 2.7% increase in candidate favorability.14

[Table 5 about here]

The results are much the same with respect to Kaine (model III), with only one aspect of his

media coverage showing a marginal relationship with his favorability rating, and this coefficient runs

counter to expectation. The results suggest a possibility that as Kaine’s media image improved, his

favorability rating dropped. Similar results emerge from with regard to Pence, but model II reveals

negative relationships between more positive treatment of his morality and experience.15 That is, more

positive media presentations of his morality and experience are associated with lower favorability ratings.

The predicted effects, however, are substantively small.16 While marginally significant, very positive

media coverage of Pence’s intelligence performed in the expected manner, with very positive coverage

leading about a 3.1% increase in his net favorability with the public over his favorability at times when

such coverage was unflattering.

Taken together, these effects, like the small or insignificant findings regarding volume of vice

presidential media coverage discussed above, might be indicative of the influence the media’s coverage of

and public’s sentiments about the presidential candidates exert on vice presidential favorability. It is

perhaps telling that the coverage of traits showing negative relationships to Pence’s favorability are

morality and intelligence, two of the traits on which his running mate came under intense and negative

media scrutiny over the course of the campaign. And though Clinton’s honesty suffered the same media

14 Substantive impact calculated using the regression coefficient presented in Model I on Table 5. Coverage of

candidate honesty was increased by one standard deviation over the mean to estimate this effect.

15 However, the morality coefficient is only marginally significant at traditional levels.

16 The results suggest that very positive coverage of Pence’s morality and experience lead to only about a 5% or

2.3%, respectively, increase in his net favorability rating. Substantive impact calculated using the regression

coefficient presented in Model II on Table 5. Coverage of candidate morality and experience was increased by one

standard deviation over the mean to estimate this effect.

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treatment, her overall media image, including her personal qualities, was also remarkably poor (Patterson

2016), and it is to this trait that Kaine’s favorability might be tied. Perhaps, then, the public was judging

the vice presidential candidates in light of the failings of their running mates – an electoral incarnation of

voters “visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children.”

Hypothesis 3: Presidential Coattails

I test this possibility by taking presidential favorability and the volume of presidential news

coverage as independent variables and vice presidential favorability as my dependent variable in the

analysis presented in the first column of Table 6. I expected both, but especially presidential favorability,

to be positively associated with vice presidential favorability, and the results confirm this expectation.

Both the volume of news coverage and the public’s impressions of the presidential candidates are

positively related to vice presidential favorability, though only net presidential favorability is statistically

significant (at the two-tailed p<0.10 level).17 Substantively, these results indicate that a three percent

decrease in presidential favorability is associated with about a one percent decrease for the vice

presidential candidates.

[Table 6 about here]

Though I did not content code media coverage of presidential candidates, Patterson (2016)

provides some information about the media’s treatment of Trump and Clinton for a thirteen week period

between August 14 and November 7, 2016. I incorporated the available data into the second model

presented on Table 6, and the results reiterate the presidential favorability effect. The tone of presidential

media coverage also shows a positive association with vice presidential favorability, though the

coefficient is statistically insignificant.18

17 The results do not differ by vice presidential candidate.

18 These results may be affected in part, however, by the misalignment of the two data sources due to differences in

aggregation techniques.

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Summary and Conclusions

On the whole, the findings here suggest that voters in the 2016 presidential election were left

asking themselves, “Vice President Who?” Media coverage of Mike Pence and Tim Kaine presented

voters with relatively little information about the candidates and what was presented tended to be fairly

neutral. While some might be tempted to fault either the media or the men seeking to be one heartbeat

away from the presidency, it is difficult to imagine more engaging and polarizing candidates heading each

ticket. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton’s ability to attract both the public’s and media’s attention left

the vice presidential nominees standing in the shadows during much of the campaign. In addition, there

was little mesmerizing about either Pence or Kaine. Both represented fairly typical vice presidential

nominees, the type of which rarely exert much influence on voters.

Of course, the present study, like most research, is open to criticisms targeted at data quality,

measurement strategy, and statistical modelling, among others. To address some possible shortcomings, I

would like to work to better align my measures of public opinion with those of news coverage.

Aggregation to the week-level might be masking some potential relationships and exaggerating others. It

is also likely that there are some time lags at play which are not modelled in the analyses presented here.

It is possible that fluctuations in public opinion did not immediately respond to news coverage, but that

such effects might take days or weeks to develop. I would further like to explore the ways in which

information sources beyond newswire stories might relate to public opinion. To that end, I would like to

explore the ways in which public interest in the candidates might be related to favorability ratings.

Perhaps Google Trends data on news and web searches by the American public could shed some light on

how informed the public was beyond the information they received from media outlets relying on AP

Newswire stories.

The findings presented here also suggest a number of additional questions that might be fruitfully

investigated. For instance, questions about the ways in which media coverage of the sitting vice president

might shape the public’s impressions of him could prove an interesting contrast to findings from the

campaign season. While the literature suggests that vice presidents have traditionally become almost

15

invisible after the election, some research suggests an increased role for more recent holders of that office

(David 1967; Hiller and Kriner 2008; Light 1984; Pomper 1966; Williams 1956). Given the skepticism

expressed about President Trump’s temperament and abilities by both the media and the public, it is

possible that media coverage of Vice President Pence could play a more important role in shaping public

opinion than in the past. As a preliminary foray into this line of questioning, I replicated the analyses

presented here for the seventeen weeks of post-election data I collected for Trump and Pence. Though

statistically non-significant, the findings revealed the expected negative association between increased

news coverage of Pence the level of unformed opinion about him, while increased coverage of Trump

displayed a positive association with the public’s ability to form an opinion about Pence. Conversely,

more news stories about Pence are associated with gains in his net favorability ratings, while more Trump

news displays a negative association with Pence’s favorability with the public (though also statistically

non-significant). This, admittedly shallow, analysis suggests the continuance of a pattern of vice

presidential media coverage becoming overwhelmed by that of the president.

Beyond questions of public opinion, I would also like to revisit some of my earlier work on the

electoral impact of vice presidential candidates over time and set the 2016 election in context. The

evidence presented here suggests this election was primarily about the headliners and not their supporting

players. Though unlikely, it would be interesting to see if voting behavior exhibited a different pattern

than the public opinion examined here, especially among independent voters who would have likely been

most open to the influence of media messages about the vice presidential candidates. If not, just how

electorally inconsequential were these vice presidential candidates compared to others since the 1970s?

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Appendix A

Story Content Coding

Intensity: The amount of coverage of the candidate in the story:

1 = very little

2 = medium amount 3 = a lot

Tone: the overall tone the story takes toward the candidate:

1 = mostly negative 2 = more negative than positive

3 = equally negative and positive or completely neutral (basic facts)

4 = more positive than negative 5 = mostly positive

Image: Imagine you are in charge of this person’s campaign. How satisfied are you with your candidate’s

image/description in this story?

1 = very unsatisfied

2 = unsatisfied

3 = neither unsatisfied nor satisfied (neutral); no image/description of candidate

4 = satisfied 5 = very satisfied

How does the article mention and/or assess the candidate’s ….

Honesty: honesty, trustworthiness

Morality: morality, decency

Intelligence: intelligence, knowledge about important things

Compassion: compassion, caring about people, being empathetic, understanding the common American

Leadership: leadership ability, being a strong leader

Experience: level of political experience, experience relevant to the position of VP or president

0 = no mention of trait

1 = mostly negative 2 = more negative than positive

3 = equally negative and positive

4 = more positive than negative

5 = mostly positive

17

Appendix B

Selection of Media Content and Coding Reliability

I took a stratified random sample of AP Newswire Service stories about vice presidential

candidates Mike Pence and Tim Kaine between July 13 and November 4, 2016. Stories about Kaine

between July 23 and November 4, 2016, were sampled, and stories published about Pence between July

13 and November 4, 2016. I identified stories about each candidate by searching the database for the

candidate’s name during the designated time periods. Searches were made on all versions of the

candidates’ names (e.g., “Mike Pence,” “Michael Richard Pence”; “Michael R. Pence”; “Pence”). Clinton

searches were also conducted for versions of former president Bill Clinton’s name and any stories

referencing only him, and not candidate Hillary Clinton, were excluded. I then randomly selected 10% of

each month’s news coverage for each candidate (i.e., 10% of the stories about Kaine in July, 10% about

him in August, etc., and the same for Pence) for coding. In total, 154 stories about Kaine and 240 about

Pence were coded.

Two student assistants served as coders to code the selected stories using the coding scheme

presented in Appendix A. Since the value of these measures depends on the quality of the coding, I

conducted a series of reliability tests to ensure that the coders accurately and consistently analyzed the

content of the news stories. A third, independent reader then coded a 5% random sample of the stories for

each candidate in each month originally read and coded by the primary coders. I then conducted a series

of inter-coder reliability tests that compared the coders’ ratings of the stories. Both a simple percent

agreement measure (i.e., “the percentage of all coding decisions made by pairs of coders on which the

coders agree” (Lombard, Snyder-Duch, and Bracken 2002: 590) and Krippendorff’s alpha (2004)

confirmed intercoder reliability that was quite high.

The coders agreed on the coding of variables between 82% and 100% of the time, with

Krippendorff’s alpha values ranging between 0.74 and 1.00. Not surprisingly, measures related to the

more objective references to candidates’ traits exhibited the highest levels of reliability. At the same time,

the more subjective measures related to tone of coverage or candidate image exhibit lower, yet

respectable, levels of agreement.

18

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20

Table 1

Public Opinion Polling Data

Polls Weeks First Poll Last Poll Polls Weeks Polls Weeks

Pence 114 34 13-Jul-16 6-Mar-17 64 17 50 17

Trump 305 34 13-Jul-16 6-Mar-17 230 17 75 17

Kaine 57 16 23-Jul-16 4-Nov-16 57 16 0 0

Clinton 213 16 23-Jul-16 4-Nov-16 213 16 0 0

Notes: Polling data collected from Huffington Post Pollster webpage (http://elections.huffingtonpost.com/pollster) on 13

March 2017. Weeks run Wednesday through Tuesday, with first week beginning July 13, 2016. Five post-election Clinton

polls were excluded from this analysis, as were all partisan polls.

Total Start Date Pre-Election Post-Election

Candidate

21

Table 2

Descriptive Statistics for Candidate Favorability Ratings

and Volume of News Coverage

Range Mean Std. Dev. Median Range Mean Std. Dev. Median Range Mean Std. Dev. Median

Vice Presidential Candidate Undecided Rating 24.00 - 45.50 35.50 7.15 36.75 15.50 - 49.80 30.79 9.12 31.83 15.33 - 30.25 21.25 3.78 21.00

Running Mate Candidate Undicded Rating 2.58 - 4.75 3.83 0.65 3.70 3.00 - 5.55 4.38 0.78 4.43 5.00 - 10.00 6.82 1.64 6.50

Vice-Presidential Candidate Net Favorability Rating -7.00 - 10.14 1.40 4.16 1.75 -1.00 - 10.50 5.14 3.70 4.50 0.00 - 12.50 6.13 3.20 6.25

Running Mate Net Favorability Rating -16.73 - -10.67 -13.20 1.79 -13.11 -10.38 - -1.33 -6.08 2.79 -5.75 -30.08 - -21.13 -25.54 3.18 -25.90

Number AP Stories on Vice-Presidential Candidate 16 - 219 85.78 53.45 72 25 - 220 110.56 57.65 88 8 - 200 89.82 53.69 83

Number AP Stories on Presidential Running Mate 158 - 441 299.39 90.40 310 179 - 514 317.67 95.19 320 224 - 1396 564.29 288.49 511

Tim Kaine (Pre-Election Period) Mike Pence (Pre-Election Period) Mike Pence (Post-Election Period)

Notes: Data aggregated to the weekly level, with weeks beginning on Wednesday and ending on Tuesday. The pre-election period runs from one and half weeks before the Republican National Convention ( July 6, 2016,

the first date of available favorability ratings for either Vice Presidential Candidate) to Election Day (November 8, 2016). The post-election Period runs from November 9, 2016 to March 6, 2017. Post-election information

presented for Pence only due to the unavailability of post-election favorability data for Kaine.

22

Table 3

Descriptive Statistics of the Content of

Pre-Election News Coverage of Vice Presidential Candidates

Range Mean Std. Dev. Median Range Mean Std. Dev. Median

Number of Words in Story 808 - 2,156 1,608.97 354.83 1,648.72 1,009 - 2,252 1,535.48 321.18 1,486.36

Intensity of Coverage 1.00 - 1.43 1.12 0.14 1.05 1.00 - 2.75 1.55 0.35 1.50

Tone of Coverage 2.82 - 4.13 3.21 0.34 3.08 1.50 - 3.25 2.67 0.44 2.79

Candidate Image 2.94 - 3.88 3.36 0.26 3.40 1.75 - 3.25 2.75 0.37 2.85

Coverage of Candidate Traits

Honesty 3.00 - 4.50 3.88 0.52 4.00 1.50 - 3.00 2.53 0.49 2.60

(# weeks trait mentioned) 10 17

Morality 3.33 - 4.00 3.85 0.22 4.00 1.67 - 3.00 2.62 0.37 2.75

(# weeks trait mentioned) 12 17

Intelligence 3.00 - 5.00 4.01 0.44 4.00 1.75 - 3.00 2.60 0.34 2.67

(# weeks trait mentioned) 12 17

Compassion 2.94 - 5.00 4.42 0.56 4.38 1.50 - 3.30 2.50 0.45 2.50

(# weeks trait mentioned) 12 17

Leadership 2.81 - 4.80 4.09 0.51 4.00 1.50 - 3.00 2.39 0.40 2.50

(# weeks trait mentioned) 13 17

Experience 2.50 - 5.00 4.03 0.822 4.00 1.00 - 2.33 1.26 0.48 1.00

(# weeks trait mentioned) 13 11

Tim Kaine Mike Pence

Notes: Data aggregated to the weekly level, with weeks beginning on Wednesday and ending on Tuesday. The pre-election period runs from

one and half weeks before the Republican National Convention ( July 6, 2016, the first date of available favorability ratings for either Vice

Presidential Candidate) to Election Day (November 8, 2016). The post-election Period runs from November 9, 2016 to March 6, 2017. Post-

election information presented for Pence only due to the unavailability of post-election favorability data for Kaine. The statistics for the

candidate image and traits measures were calculated using only the cases for which the image/trait was mentioned.

23

TABLE 4

Volume of Coverage and Unformed Opinion

about Vice Presidential Candidates

B (s.e.) Std. B B (s.e.) Std. B B (s.e.) Std. B

Number of AP Stories about VP Candidate 0.008 0.049 0.053 * 0.322 0.023 0.17

(0.019) (0.025) (0.022)

Number of Words 0.000 -0.007 -0.005 -0.165 -0.002 -0.114

(0.002) (0.003) (0.003)

Intensity of Coverage -9.838 *** -0.303 11.099 0.258 -16.503 ** -0.326

(3.422) (7.817) (6.758)

Post Vice Presidential Debate -5.941 * -0.329 -14.862 ** -0.765 -11.536 *** -0.773

(3.395) (5.808) (3.073)

Week of Campaign -1.131 *** -0.649 -0.286 -0.158 -0.332 -0.221

(0.330) (0.591) (0.335)

Constant 57.659 ---- 22.285 ---- 62.144 ----

(6.216) (14.274) (7.020)

Number of Cases

Adjusted R-squared

III

16

0.841

Note: Dependent variable is percentage of survey respondents saying they were 'undecided' about whether they held a favorable view

of the candidate or not.*p<0.10; **p<0.05; ***p<0.01

I II

33

0.733

17

0.836

Both Candidates Pence Kaine

24

TABLE 5

Content of Coverage and Vice Presidential

Candidate Favorability Ratings

B (s.e.) Std. B B (s.e.) Std. B B (s.e.) Std. B

Tone of News Coverage 1.040 0.115 0.887 0.105 3.004 0.247

(2.780) (2.062) (4.955)

Candidate Image in News Coverage -2.593 -0.268 3.856 0.389 -12.920 * -0.820

(3.375) (2.867) (6.280)

Coverage of Candidate's Honesty 3.448 * 0.632 -1.571 -0.229 2.890 0.577

(1.715) (3.253) (2.171)

Coverage of Candidate's Morality -2.482 -0.387 -11.356 * -1.367 0.890 0.179

(5.255) (3.570)

Coverage of Candidate's Intelligence -0.831 -0.156 5.967 * 0.832 -1.108 -0.281

(2.875) (2.852)

Coverage of Candidate's Compassion 1.771 0.429 1.854 0.236 1.758 0.596

(2.016) (2.400) (2.253)

Coverage of Candidate's Leadership 0.856 0.175 6.466 0.789 -3.123 -0.890

(2.368) (2.293) (3.858)

Coverage of Candidate's Experience -0.823 -0.225 -15.628 ** -0.626 2.800 0.854

5.326 2.598

Constant 5.235 ---- -5.987 ---- 30.211 ----

(7.114) (16.992)

Number of Cases

Adjusted R-squared

I.

Note: Dependent variable is net candidate favorability (% favorable - % unfavorable).*p<0.10; **p<0.05; ***p<0.01

17

0.628

16

II. III.

Both Candidates Pence Kaine

0.271

33

0.080

25

TABLE 6

Presidential Coattails and Vice Presidential

Candidate Favorability Ratings

B (s.e.) Std. B B (s.e.) Std. B

Net Favorability of Presidential Running Mate 0.318 * 0.168 0.378 * 0.389

(0.162) (0.205)

Number of AP Stories about Presidential Running Mate 0.011 0.008 0.006 0.107

(0.008) (0.011)

Tone of New Coverage of Presidential Running Mate ---- ---- 0.056 0.143

---- (0.083)

Constant 2.916 ---- 0.712 ----

(3.166) (7.471)

Number of Cases

Adjusted R-squared 0.132 0.162

Note: Dependent variable is net candidate favorability (% favorable - % unfavorable). *p<0.10; **p<0.05; ***p<0.01

I II

33 26

Volume Volume & Content