1Mobilizing the Mobilized: The Electoral Recruitment Paradox

The campaign mobilization literature argues that contacting will have the most influence on individuals who are socio-economically or politically disadvantaged. Yet evidence persis-tently shows that the advantaged are disproportionately contacted. This paradox is explained once one recognizes that contacting during elections serves divergent goals that are explicitly tied to the election cycle and to election competitiveness. Broadly speaking, contacting in elections should be seen as having two participatory recruitment stages. The first is a re-source gathering stage, with resources coming from the politically advantaged. The second, general mass-mobilization stage should only occur when every vote counts, in competitive elections. This two stage theory is supported when tested using the 2000 Annenberg election data. In the resource gathering stage, income, education, and strong party identification all made it more likely that an individual was contacted by the campaigns. In contrast, of these commitment and capacity variables, only income predicted contact with the campaigns in the mobilization stage in nonbattleground states. Finally, we see substantial equity in recruit-ment in the mobilization stage in battleground states as an individual’s likelihood of being contacted slightly decreases as income rises