David Purdue, seen here, in the 2022 GOP primary for governor in Georgia. Voters might think to themselves, “If this person, whom I trust and like, supports a candidate, then I should trust and like the candidate too.” This is especially true in elections in which little is known about the contenders. To be sure, candidate endorsements can act as valuable cues for voters seeking to make informed decisions. In this case, reverse causality implies that Trump’s favorite candidates are not more likely to win because of his endorsement. In turn, these attributes also determine who gets endorsed by prominent groups and people.įor this reason, Trump’s endorsements are an excellent lesson in what scholars call “ reverse causality.” This is what happens when people mistake a phenomenon’s effects for its cause, like thinking that people holding umbrellas have caused it to rain. Backing the winnersĬandidates’ electoral fortunes mostly stem from whether they’re incumbents, which political party they belong to, their ideology and their political savvy. Much like the endorsements of interest groups and political parties, the so-called “Trump bump” is mostly a reflection of the attributes a candidate already had before the endorsement. This is because endorsements are not made in a vacuum. But in most cases, their effects are far less potent than commentators might expect. Political science says that endorsements do occasionally matter for determining election outcomes.
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