Gender bending: Candidate strategy and voter response in a marketing age

An increase in women candidates and advances in technology and marketing have affected United States campaigns. Prior experiments test the static impact of gender (i.e., Sapiro 1982; Huddy 1993). Missing is the inclusion of purposeful candidate rhetoric and technology strategy. Have the trends of an increase in the number of women combined with technological and marketing advances affected the behavior of politicians and the influence of campaigns on voters? How? In this dissertation, I address these questions. A strategic candidate might bend his or her gender, through the use of rhetoric that is incongruent with gender stereotypes. Or, a candidate could pursue a strategy congruent with stereotypes, using available marketing and technological options to communicate their message. For example, candidates can control the messages they send through the features of a particular medium, such as websites and direct mail. I examine when candidates might bend their gender using marketing and technological strategies and what effects that has on voters.;To test how candidates use their gender, I investigate a candidate's overall strategy, via website content. I apply issue ownership theory of candidate strategy (Petrocik 1996) to determine if candidates use gender-congruent rhetoric as the theory might predict. I test the conditions under which candidates pursue gender-bending on direct mail, a more specifically targeted medium. Finally, I examine the effects of gender-based strategies on voters through an experiment.;I find that issue ownership theory only somewhat applies to gender. Although female candidates did not pursue a congruent strategy on their websites, they did pursue strategies consistent with their gender on direct mail pieces. Moreover, this congruent strategy does better at persuading voters, while an incongruent strategy influences how factors are weighted in an overall evaluation. My findings indicate that there are particular conditions, such as the type of medium, under which candidates will use a strategy consistent with their gender. Gender-based strategies change voters' perceptions. Thus, this research contributes to an understanding of candidate strategy in an age where being a female candidate is not a clear signal to voters and where novel campaign strategies can potentially influence voters' ideal choices.