How Filibuster Rhetoric Informs Perceptions of Politicians

Abstract

How does rhetoric about the filibuster inform people's views of political figures? We argue that support or opposition to eliminating the filibuster conveys information to citizens that they can use to assess a politician's ideological position. This information can also be used when citizens form affective evaluations of politicians, but its effects depend on people's partisan identities. We use a preregistered survey experiment—along with a secondary analysis of cross-sectional survey data—to show that a candidate who says that the filibuster should be eliminated is viewed as being more liberal than a candidate who says that it should be protected or who says nothing. We further show that Democrats like candidates who use elimination rhetoric more than protection or no rhetoric while Republicans react in the opposite way. These results suggest that elite messaging about salient political institutions can fundamentally shape people's views of political figures.