The Segemented Electorate: Presidential Campaigns and Their Consequences in an Information Age

It is common to think of presidential elections as long campaigns waged by two warring powers, each competing for the hearts-and-minds of Amer-ican voters. Yet this metaphor masks considerable variation in how voters experience the campaign in the run-up-to Election Day. We focus on how the rise of candidate-centered campaigns in has created a situation in which some voters experience an avalanche of information from the campaigns and others hear next to nothing. We argue that when we carefully consider which vot-ers should be most responsive to campaign information, that the pattern of segmentation that exists does not advance a nation-wide campaign about the health of American politics.