In Choices in a Chaotic Campaign, Kim Fridkin and Patrick Kenney explore the dynamic nature of citizens' beliefs and behaviors in response to the historic 2020 presidential campaign. In today's political environment where citizens can effortlessly gather information, it is important to move beyond standard political characteristics and consider the impact of pre-existing psychological predispositions. Fridkin and Kenney argue these predispositions influence assessments of campaign events and issues, and ultimately alter citizens' voting decisions. The book relies on data from an original three-wave panel study of over 4,000 people interviewed in September, October, and immediately after Election Day in November 2020. The timing of the surveys provides the analytical leverage to explore how views of the campaign alter citizens' impressions of the candidates. The book demonstrates that expanding the relevant citizen characteristics to include psychological predispositions increases our ability to understand how campaigns influence voters' decisions at the ballot box.

‘Fridkin and Kenney’s theory of citizen-centered campaigns provides a new lens of individual psychological predispositions alongside traditional political factors that results in a unique understanding of the chaotic and polarized election landscape of 2020, an election that has changed the trajectory of American politics.’

Janet M. Box-Steffensmeier - The Ohio State University

‘The book is essential for all scholars who study elections and would make a good book for course on this topic. It provides an excellent and detailed overview of the key moments in the 2020 presidential election, the literature on elections, and an analysis that shows how much campaigns matter. The book is also recommended to practitioners and general readers interested in the subject. … Recommended.’

C. Kinsella Source: CHOICE

‘Despite there being a large body of literature spanning roughly seven decades on the subject of campaign effects, Fridkin and Kenney’s analysis is a well-needed update in light of a ‘chaotic’ 2020 election cycle. … Supported by a plethora of empirical analyses, Fridkin and Kenney provide thoughtful commentary and a framework for understanding the play by play of the 2020 election. … Grounded in a common data set, Fridkin and Kenney’s study methodologically investigates the impact of the defining issues, events, and controversies of the 2020 election one by one. … They introduce a more nuanced framework, the aptly named citizen-centered theory of campaigns, for understanding individual-level variation in campaign effects.… the authors end the book with a call for political scientists to continue to explore more interdisciplinary approaches to studying political behavior. This is perhaps the greatest takeaway from ‘Choices in a Chaotic Campaign’.’

Nadine Suzanne Gibson Source: Political Science Quarterly

‘The book will be useful for scholars and students in political communication, campaign studies, and media effects research, as well as for those interested in the relationship between media environments and democratic processes. It provides an empirical framework that advances the argument that media effects can be thoroughly understood by placing citizens’ predispositions, media environments, and campaign events in sustained analytical relation.’

Enrique Núñez-Mussa Source: International Journal of Communication

‘The book’s contribution can be read on two levels. The first concerns its broader theoretical argument: the attempt to offer a perspective centered on citizens’ characteristics and their relationship to the campaign’s unfolding. This perspective assumes that different electoral events and their media coverage may generate dynamic effects on voters, depending on how they are interpreted through different psychological predispositions. Explaining an election at this level enables the incorporation of multiple variables and their interrelationships … The book will be useful for scholars and students in political communication, campaign studies, and media effects research, as well as for those interested in the relationship between media environments and democratic processes.’

Enrique Núñez-Mussa Source: International Journal of Communication