Scholars find that party mobilization efforts reliably increase voter turnout. Although many different forms of mobilization have been studied, one of the oldest—candidate campaigning—has not. This article examines the mobilizing potential of candidate campaign appearances in presidential elections. Analyzing aggregate election returns, I show that campaign visits can measurably increase both turnout and partisan vote percentages. The effects are often contingent, though, on how frequently candidates visit a particular area and on the timing of the campaign visits.
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