Do the ubiquitous campaign lawn signs & bumper stickers influence voters?

[NurseJackie]

Do the ubiquitous campaign lawn signs & bumper stickers influence voters? Or, is it just a way for the supporters of one candidate to annoy the supporters of opposing candidate/s?

ME? I don't do lawn signs or bumper stickers (neither primary nor general election) because I'm afraid of aggressive supporters of certain other candidates who may take the opportunity to vandalize my home or my truck.

[RockRaven]

1. I don't think they convince anybody how to vote, but they give permission

to act on an impulse that one might otherwise refrain from acting on if one thought they were the only person who thought/felt that way.

[wyldwolf]

2. Ask Ron Paul

[underpants]

11. LMFAO

Ron Paul signs turned int InfoWars bumperstickers

[abqtommy]

3. Sure, especially the people who put up the signs!

[quickesst]

4. whenever I see campaign lawn signs....

....if it's for a Democrat that I favor, my one and only real thought is, "good for them".

If it's for a republican, my one and only thought is, "idiot".

What they both have in common is that neither one is an influence.

[Blaukraut]

6. Exactly. Same goes for bumper stickers n/t

[quickesst]

18. haha ....

.... personally, I think that anyone, Democrat, independent, or republican that uglys up their vehicles with bumper stickers is a little goofy.

[NurseJackie]

8. That's pretty much how I feel as well.

"Idiot" is exactly what I think (or say out loud.)

[quickesst]

19. come to think of it....

.... I say idiot out loud myself.

[DBoon]

20. If I see a republican/right wing sticker on a parked car

I always pick a space as far away as possible to park my car.

Doubly true for InfoWars stickers.

[quickesst]

21. good move

If you don't park too close, you don't have to go to the car wash to get the stink off of your car.

[luvs2sing]

5. They don't influence me..

and I don’t make a habit of putting them in my yard though I have on occasion when an acquaintance in running for office. My husband and I have a strict no bumper sticker rule. We both have Obama stickers on our guitar cases.

[underpants]

7. Good question.

I just moved into a new neighborhood so this will help inform which neighbors need the air let out of their tires. 😁

Honestly having worked on campaigns for 16 years, signs bring people to the office. That encourages volunteering. Every volunteer helps.

From an advertising standpoint - after a product is presented to someone more than 16 times* their likelihood of buying shoots straight upwards.

Like I said, new neighborhood. I saw some yard signs for a State Senate candidate that caught my eye. Very distinctive glasses on the sign. It's her style her trademark if you will. Very effective. She didn't win. She was running against an incumbent woman. Those signs were effective.

* 16 is the tried and true sales number. I think it really surges at 12.

[LisaM]

9. I don't know, but I can tell you a little story (well, two).

1) Back in 1988 I volunteered on the Dukakis campaign. They put me in charge of delivering yard signs, which was pretty fun since the people had ordered them and wanted them delivered.

In one house near our neighborhood, I knocked on the door (young woman in my 20s) with the sign, and an older man answered. "Oh, you want my wife" he said. Out came an older woman who was obviously Greek-American, and I thought she was going to burst into tears, because she so loved Dukakis and wanted him to win, and she so wanted his yard sign in her front yard. It still moves me to tell that story so many years later.

2) There is a town, Anacortes, Washington, that we drive through a lot, and they apparently have very few restrictions on the size of yard signs because come election season (which seems to be always, including local millages, etc.), the place is FULL of huge yard signs. One nice fellow put up a giant Trump flag and a yard sign that says, "Thank you, America", and he's had that obnoxiousness going for three full years. He puts signs for other candidates in his yard, too, and even though I don't vote there, if I ever did, I would sure know which candidates not to vote for!

[underpants]

13. Great stories.

[LisaM]

17. This year at Christmas time....

we drove past that sumbitch Trump sign and the house next door had spray painted their own front window with a Christmas message in decorative snow. It said:

FELIZ NAVIDAD


I laughed for about the next twenty miles.

[George II]

10. I never believed in them (there were very few if any growing up in NYC) and I swore....

....that if some day I bought a house I'd never put up a lawn sign. But I got nagged into putting one up just about every year.

I don't think they do anything at all, but they do indicate who might be more popular in town. But they don't change minds.

Bumper stickers are downright stupid. We have a guy in the neighborhood with a CADILLAC and he stuck a trump sticker on the back on the paint, not the plastic area. Now he's stuck with it forever.

I get a kick out of the numbnuts who are still driving around with McCain/Palin or Romney/Ryan stickers.

[Sloumeau]

12. The actual answer is, "Maybe".

There have been studies that show that the more often someone sees a candidate's name, the more comfortable they are in voting for them. In city elections, where one candidate has tons of money, and the other one does not, and the candidate with money has tons of yard signs, bumper stickers, TV advertisements, and billboard advertisements, when everything else is equal, the candidate whose name is everywhere almost always wins.

There is something called "The Bandwagon Effect". Psychologists have studied it for decades. The basic theory is that people like to vote for what is popular. So, if it seems like everyone else is voting for a given candidate, then people are more likely to vote for that candidate. Things like yard signs help to contribute to the bandwagon effect.

JFK said, “VICTORY HAS A HUNDRED FATHERS AND DEFEAT IS AN ORPHAN.”

Everyone likes to be on the winning side, which is why, after a Superbowl, an entire city tends to celebrate the victory, regardless of who anyone's favorite team really is, and it is why after the economy crashed in 2008, no one had apparently ever voted for George W. Bush.

Will a single yard sign make a difference? It may or may not. Will a million yard signs make a difference? The answer, most likely, is "yes".

[NurseJackie]

14. Wow... thanks for that! Great info and insight.

[underpants]

15. ✅

[Ace Rothstein]

16. No

However, I do have a air horn that I plan on using on election night when Trump loses. Specifically in front of the houses that have been flying Trump flags for 4 years.

[Codeine]

22. I think they do in local elections.

People who don’t pay attention might look into a mayoral race or a city council ward election if they see a bunch of signs.