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A UA communication professor's survey shows Democratic party candidates with no clear edge in leading the military.

By University Communications
April 16, 2008

So, which Democratic party candidate do Americans trust to answer that 3 a.m. phone call to the White House? When given a choice between the two frontrunners, the answer is either one.

Among Democrats and independent voters who were polled, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama were considered equally capable of being commander in chief of the military, according to data released March 12 from the National Annenberg Election Survey, or NAES. Forty-one percent of respondents believed that Clinton would make the best commander in chief, while 41 percent said Obama would.

Kate Kenski, an assistant professor of communication at The University of Arizona, is a senior analyst for the Annenberg survey, the largest academic election study conducted of the American electorate.

According to Kenski, the survey indicates that voter perceptions of the candidates’ abilities as commander in chief will be the most influential trait in determining votes for this election.

The gender, age, race and ethnicity of the individuals polled significantly influenced which candidate they were likely to support.

Women as a group were more likely to select Clinton over Obama as the best choice for commander in chief (44 percent to 38 percent), while men were more likely to select Obama over Clinton (44 percent to 37 percent).

Women ages 18 to 29, however, preferred Obama over Clinton (50 percent to 38 percent), while men ages 65 and older preferred Clinton over Obama (43 percent to 31 percent). These statistics support another general trend: As a whole, younger people preferred Obama, while older people preferred Clinton.

Race and ethnicity also influenced peoples’ choice. Whites were more likely to support Clinton (45 percent to 37 percent). Latinos also favored Clinton (44 percent to 34 percent), although young Latinos were more likely to choose Obama (49 percent to 35 percent).

As a whole, blacks were 2.5 times more likely to choose Obama over Clinton (61 percent to 24 percent).

“Across all age groups, black respondents selected Sen. Obama over Sen. Clinton as the best choice for commander in chief of the military,” Kenski said.

Kenski said people’s perceptions of candidate traits are important, especially during the primaries. Candidate issue positions are often left out of media coverage. “There are other ways that voters figure out who the best candidate is going to be for them; one way is candidate trait assessments,” she said.

Data for this study included 6,940 adults who did not identify with the Republican Party, and were collected between Feb. 1 and March 11.

Kenski has worked on the NAES, which is conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania, since the 2000 election. Prior to teaching at the UA, Kenski worked as a senior analyst at the Annenberg Public Policy Center with her mentor, Kathleen Hall Jamieson.

Kenski has published a number of articles in prestigious communication and psychology journals on a variety of political subjects, including the influence of such factors as youth, ethnicity and Internet use on political activity.

She currently is working on several presidential campaign studies, including one on how people learn the issue positions of the presidential candidates and the extent to which that learning affects vote choice, the effects of early and absentee voting on political involvement and the effects of age on candidate perceptions.