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The Reasoning Voter is an insider's look at campaigns, candidates, media, and voters that convincingly argues that voters make informed logical choices. Samuel L. Popkin analyzes three primary campaigns--Carter in 1976; Bush and Reagan in 1980; and Hart, Mondale, and Jackson in 1984--to arrive at a new model of the way voters sort through commercials and sound bites to choose a candidate. Drawing on insights from economics and cognitive psychology, he convincingly demonstrates that, as trivial as campaigns often appear, they provide voters with a surprising amount of information on a candidate's views and skills. For all their shortcomings, campaigns do matter.

"If you're preparing to run a presidential campaign, and only have time to read one book, make sure to read Sam Popkin's The Reasoning Voter . If you have time to read two books, read The Reasoning Voter twice."--James Carville, Senior Stategist, Clinton/Gore '92

"A fresh and subtle analysis of voter behavior."--Thomas Byrne Edsall, New York Review of Books
"Professor Popkin has brought V.O. Key's contention that voters are rational into the media age. This book is a useful rebuttal to the cynical view that politics is a wholly contrived business, in which unscrupulous operatives manipulate the emotions of distrustful but gullible citizens. The reality, he shows, is both more complex and more hopeful than that."--David S. Broder, The Washington Post

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CHOICE Review

Popkin (professor of political science and political consultant) has written an excellent book challenging the popular and scholarly notion that voters are irrational, ill-informed, and easily manipulated. Popkin draws from voting studies (the original Columbia University study, The People's Choice, 1944, by Paul Lazarsfeld, Bernard Berelson, and Helen Gaudet, periodically revised), economics (Anthony Downs's An Economic Theory of Democracy, 1957), and cognitive psychology to develop a theory of "low-information rationality." Voters employ "gut" reasoning and "rules of thumb" to evaluate information and reason effectively about where parties and candidates stand on issues, what endorsements mean, and how the government is performing. Popkin gives evidence from general elections and tests his theory with case studies of three primaries: Carter in 1976, Bush and Reagan in 1980, and Hart, Mondale, and Jackson in 1984. Using this evidence, he shows that the "bandwagon" and "media age" explanations of voting are more myth than reality and that citizens are capable of reasoned opinions and voting. Excellent bibliography. Essential for all students of voting behavior.-E. D. Riggle, University of Kentucky