Bipartisan Political Brands

Can efforts to cultivate a bipartisan political brand meaningfully shape how lawmakers are perceived, or are such signals dismissed in an increasingly polarized political environment? In this Center for Effective Lawmaking (CEL) working paper, Faculty Affiliate Andrew J. Clarke, an associate professor of Government and Law at Lafayette College, and Christopher M. Byrnes, a Lafayette College alum, examine whether affiliation with the bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus can influence perceptions of legislators’ ideology. Through a descriptive analysis of newly collected Problem Solvers Caucus membership data and a pre-registered experiment with 2,326 verified elected officials and politically engaged Americans, Clarke and Byrnes find that members of the caucus are more centrist, more bipartisan, and more effective than their unaffiliated colleagues in the House. They further find that the Problem Solvers Caucus brand can shift perceptions of legislators’ ideological positions, though these effects are not distributed equally across members and may depend on the partisan identity of the lawmaker. The findings suggest that bipartisan political brands can provide meaningful ideological signals even amid high levels of partisan polarization.

To learn more, read the full report here.

Photo: “Republican Elephant & Democratic Donkey – 3D Icons” by DonkeyHotey is licensed under CC BY 2.0.