#voters — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #voters, aggregated by home.social.
-
Mamdani’s multilingual, meme-friendly style wins over young voters
Zohran Mamdani has built a notably different kind of political connection with New York’s diverse communities. His approach centers on delivering campaign outreach in multiple languages, including Mandarin, Bengali and Spanish. Rather than relying solely on En…
https://justpaste.in/news/mamdanis-multilingual-meme-friendly-style-wins-over-young-voters/
-
#Trump and #Republicans won by pretending to be #populists. Then they betrayed their #voters by being #elitists instead. #DemocraticSocialists actually are populists, and can appeal to the #MAGA base if they do it right.
-
When Democracy Needs a Qualification
What happens when we decide that democracy needs an eligibility test? Advocate Shethem examines the seemingly sensible idea of restricting political leadership to the educated and qualified—and asks a few inconvenient questions about what “qualified” really means.https://satiregpt.wordpress.com/2026/08/18/when-democracy-needs-a-qualification/
-
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/aug/17/public-in-england-and-wales-wrongly-think-most-killers-are-minority-ethnic. "YouGov’s survey of 1,800 people in #England & #Wales found that people thought 55% of convicted #killers were from an #ethnic #minority, when the real percentage is 35%. They also thought just 45% of #homicides were committed by #white people, when the real figure is 64%. #Reform #voters were furthest from the #truth, believing 70% of #killers were from ethnic minorities - 10% more than voters of any other party." So, #Racism isn't a problem? Like Hell it isn't!
-
DATE: August 15, 2026 at 09:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Voters punish politicians more for infidelity if their spouse leaves them
URL: https://www.psypost.org/voters-punish-politicians-more-for-infidelity-if-their-spouse-leaves-them/
When a political candidate is caught in an infidelity scandal, voters judge the politician more harshly if their spouse decides to leave the marriage. A recent experiment also revealed that voters tend to punish politicians from their own political party more severely than those across the aisle. These results were published in the *Journal of Political Marketing*.
Political spouses frequently act as character witnesses for candidates, projecting an image of stability and family values to the public. When a scandal breaks, the spouse is often thrust into the spotlight. Their reaction can serve as a guide for how voters should interpret the controversy. In American politics, examples range from Hillary Clinton’s public defense of Bill Clinton in the 1990s to Melania Trump’s continued presence following allegations against Donald Trump.
The theoretical expectations surrounding spousal responses are split. On one hand, a supportive spouse might signal to the public that the marriage can survive, softening the blow of the scandal. This aligns with traditional gender expectations, sometimes termed benevolent sexism, where women are rewarded by society for remaining loyal in prescribed roles. On the other hand, if a spouse leaves, it could validate the public’s worst suspicions about the candidate’s character.
Political party values also complicate these expectations. Democratic candidates often emphasize social justice and gender equality, meaning an affair could be viewed as a hypocritical violation of those ideals. Republican candidates frequently campaign on traditional family values and moral behavior. An infidelity scandal could similarly damage a conservative politician’s credibility by contradicting their stated platform.
Jason Gainous, a mass communication researcher at the University of Sharjah, led a team of political scientists to examine these dynamics. They wanted to understand whether a wife’s decision to stay with or leave an unfaithful politician changes how voters evaluate him. The research team also sought to determine how a voter’s own political party affiliation influences their judgment of the candidate’s actions.
To test these reactions, the researchers designed an online survey experiment involving adult participants. They included quality control measures to ensure participants were paying attention, discarding automated bot responses and those who completed the survey too quickly or too slowly. This left a final sample of 1,401 individuals who were guided through a three-stage process simulating the unfolding of a political scandal.
First, each person read a fictional biography of a male candidate. The biographies detailed the candidate’s age, education, military service, and political experience. The profiles were identical, except half the participants were told the candidate was a Democrat, and the other half were told he was a Republican.
After reading the biography, participants rated their support for the candidate. They answered questions about how likely they were to vote for him, share his information on social media, donate to his campaign, attend a fundraiser, and trust him. These responses were combined into a general index of candidate support.
In the second stage, participants read a mock news article revealing that the candidate had engaged in an affair with a legislative assistant. The article noted that the politician initially lied to his constituents before admitting to the relationship and expressing regret. After reading this update, the participants evaluated the candidate again. As expected, support for the candidate dropped across the board after the scandal was revealed.
The final stage introduced the key experimental variable. Participants read a second news story detailing the spouse’s reaction to the affair. Half of the group read that the spouse decided to stay in the marriage and support the candidate. The other half read that the spouse chose to separate from the politician. Following this final update, participants rated the candidate a third time using the same set of questions.
The researchers tracked the shifts in support across these three stages to measure how much participants penalized the candidate. The data revealed that voters punished the candidate more severely when his wife chose to leave him. While a supportive spouse did not completely erase the reputational damage of the affair, a separating spouse amplified the negative evaluations. The wife’s departure appeared to confirm the severity of the candidate’s moral failing in the eyes of the voters.
The researchers also measured participants’ adherence to traditional gender roles to see if these beliefs influenced their reactions. Participants who held stronger traditional or sexist views regarding gender were harsher on the candidate in reaction to the spouse’s decision. However, when looking at the overall shift from the initial biography to the final spousal decision, these same individuals were slightly less likely to penalize the candidate overall compared to other voters.
The research team uncovered unexpected patterns regarding political party affiliation. They initially hypothesized that voters would be protective of candidates from their own party and harsher on opponents. Past research often suggests that voters will rationalize the bad behavior of a politician who shares their ideology to protect their party’s electoral success. The results of this experiment showed the exact opposite.
Participants were actually more likely to penalize a candidate who shared their own political affiliation. This penalty was especially pronounced when the spouse left the candidate. Strong Democrats were highly critical of the Democratic candidate in this scenario. Strong Republicans displayed a similar, though slightly less extreme, willingness to punish the Republican candidate when the marriage ended.
Overall, voters were slightly more likely to penalize the Democratic candidate than the Republican candidate for the affair. The researchers accounted for variables like respondent age, education, and income, ensuring that the effects they observed were primarily driven by the experimental changes and political affiliations.
The experiment provides a controlled look at voter behavior, but real-world political landscapes involve additional variables. The study focused exclusively on a heterosexual male politician, which reflects the most common demographic involved in historical political sex scandals. Public reactions might differ if the unfaithful politician were female or if the scandal involved a same-sex relationship.
The specific nature of the affair and the candidate’s apology could also alter public perception in real-world scenarios. The mock scenario combined infidelity with workplace power dynamics and public deception. Future research could isolate these elements to see how different forms of misconduct influence voter forgiveness. Evolving cultural norms around gender and marriage will likely continue to shift how the public interprets these personal controversies.
The study, “Political Evaluations and Spousal Responses to Candidate Infidelity: Should I Stay or Should I Go?,” was authored by Jason Gainous, Alyson Hendricks-Benton, Lauren Reuss, Taylor Sowders, Forest Clevenger, Samuel Stottman, Julia Mattingly, and Bella Beilman.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/voters-punish-politicians-more-for-infidelity-if-their-spouse-leaves-them/
-------------------------------------------------
Private, vetted email list for mental health professionals: https://www.clinicians-exchange.org
Unofficial Psychology Today Xitter to toot feed at Psych Today Unofficial Bot @PTUnofficialBot
-------------------------------------------------
#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #politicalscandal #voters #infidelity #spouseresponse #politicalmarketing #voterbehavior #partypolitics #charactervsperception #genderroles #pollingresearch
-
Our electoral importance is in the past. This focus is built on a fiction and will lead to street level violence eventually.
"#Polls show #Jewish #voters hold competing priorities in their minds: They’re increasingly concerned about #antisemitism and their personal safety in #America, and they hold complex and divergent views on #Israel, which often is not a defining #voting issue, even as it seems to be the dominant way strategists and pundits talk about this #electorate.
Here’s what the latest data has to say about what Jewish voters want and how their politics are changing this cycle."
The remarkable consistency of the Jewish electorate
Aside from Black voters, there have traditionally been no more loyal #Democratic voters than Jewish #Americans. Since 2008, between 60 and 80 percent of these voters picked the Democratic candidate, while about 60 percent have consistently identified with the party over the last two decades.
That changed slightly after 2024..."
-
Time to change leadership.
Hakeem and Chuck are NOT the dynamic duo they led us to believe.
Months of silence
Months of inactivity
Months of passive inaction.Meanwhile
Thousands deported
Several killed in US custody
Due process eliminated
Federal oversight destroyed
Legal boundaries destroyed
Lives across this country destroyed.They have remained silent for too long.
Time for change.
Mamdani is just the beginning.
But not the end. -
Please fund social services, libraries, EMTs & firefighters. You know... The departments that save and support lives instead of ruining them. I'm sick of HPD almost mowing down the elderly and children at our peaceful protests in obscene military tactical gear & four-wheelers. It's disgusting. #Houston #voters Vote accordingly, #Houstonians.
-
7.35 million eligeable voters. 100k eligeable Jewish voters.
'The Jewish Vote™' is irrelevant.
We allow ourselves to be used as foils in these elections because we foolishly think it shows importance. And so, win or lose it'll be a 'triumph over the Jews' story now. 🙄
Btw, combined Muslim and Arab vote, accounting for crossover populations, is~300k.
“I think #ElSayed has an uphill battle to try to convince #Jewish #voters to support him," said Porn, who is not Jewish.
"He needs to make the case and it will be a tough case to make. There are a lot of Jewish voters who have talked to me who have said they will have a tough time voting for El-Sayed."
Asked about El-Sayed campaigning with #Piker, “if I were advising El-Sayed I would tell him to throw him under the bus," Porn said.
Though concerns about El-Sayed's views on #Israel extend beyond Jewish voters, Porn noted that there are about twice as many #Muslim or #Arab voters in #Michigan as there are Jewish..."
-
Chevron disclosed $12 billion in earnings, reflecting a $9.6-billion jump over the same quarter last year and the firm’s biggest profit since 2020.
ExxonMobil said its earnings were $14.5 billion, more than double what the company reported for the same quarter last year.
#EpsteinClass getting rich off of the people, while these monsters crush the people.
Oil companies have delighted Wall Street this week by reporting multibillion-dollar windfalls in their earnings statements, with ExxonMobil and Chevron reporting a combined $26.5 billion in profits during the second quarter of the year.
But the immense profit stemming in large part from the war in Iran, and at the expense of #voters who will remember this depraved fuckery.
-
Flood of poll watchers, observers, monitors to descend on midterm voters #elections #vote #voters #midterms #cartoon #gregkearney #kearney
-
CW: nzpol poverty etc
'Simon Bridges wrote an op-ed for the #NZ Herald on 31 July 2026. It ran 1,200 words. It contained zero verifiable numbers, zero #economic #data, and zero engagement with the actual mechanism producing NZ's cost-of-living #crisis. What it contained was something far more revealing: a perfect specimen of the Muppets Show that has displaced #political accountability ...
'That family in South Auckland — the one Bridges pretends to speak for — that has been paying more for everything since 2021 while their #wages have fallen in real terms.
'.....
'Bridges' op-ed, published under the headline "Our political aspirants need to cut out the silly business, it's serious economic times," opens with a Kabuki theatre of gravitas and closes with the same. Between those two pillars of self-congratulation, he advances a single argument: politicians should focus on "growing the metaphorical cake" rather than "redistributing our collective #earnings."
'This is the household metaphor in political dress. It is the same lunacy that tells #voters #government spending is a zero-sum transfer, that "#growth" is a force of #Nature rather than a #policy decision outcome...
'...When #capital keeps grabbing a larger share of output and #labour is left to takes less, #consumer spending contracts. Firms cannot sell #goods if workers lack the purchasing power to buy them...
'The real test of seriousness is ...: can you name the mechanism producing the outcome you claim to care about? Can you explain why NZ household #debt reached the unbearable 167% of disposable #income? Can you account for why real wages have fallen for five consecutive years? If you cannot, you are not being serious about the economy. You are performing a theatrical piece on seriousness that purposely fogs real reasons that produced the crisis.'https://keenlens.substack.com/p/grow-the-cake-is-not-the-story-bleeding -
'"Grow the Cake" Is Not the Story. Bleeding Households White is.
New Zealand • The Growth Delusion Series'
Maurizio Piglia
Aug 01, 2026' -
A check can buy ads and consultants, but voters reward candidates who show up, listen, and knock on doors. Candidate quality plus real voter contact can beat a personal fortune. Down ballot Democrats, take heart and do the work. A checkbook is not destiny. #Voters #KnockEveryDoor
-
"I think this will help a lot with elections" —
#TrumpAdmin asks Supreme Court to allow new limits on mail ballots:
As ~"part of a high-stakes push by... #Trump & his allies to put fresh limits on voting ahead of pivotal #elections where control of the House and the Senate is at stake" ~
~"A divided (appeals court) panel... upheld a federal judge's block on the order, finding that it would 'sow confusion' and 'threaten disenfranchisement of many eligible #voters.'"
-
Associated Press: Democrats seize on AI data center backlash that’s dividing rural Republicans in places like Texas. “People don’t like the secrecy surrounding the projects or the prospect of air, noise, water and light pollution. They fear electric bills going up, wells going dry and losing open space, farmland or forest. Now the ripple effects have spread to top-of-the-ticket races, where […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/07/25/associated-press-democrats-seize-on-ai-data-center-backlash-thats-dividing-rural-republicans-in-places-like-texas/ -
Ironton Tribune: Ohio data center amendment misses 2026 ballot as lawmaker eyes petition limits. “Ohio voters will not get a chance to weigh in on a proposed constitutional amendment targeting data centers this November. Conserve Ohio, the group behind the effort, has announced it will continue gathering signatures and instead aim for the 2027 general election ballot.”
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/07/24/ironton-tribune-ohio-data-center-amendment-misses-2026-ballot-as-lawmaker-eyes-petition-limits/ -
CW: USPol / US politics
So six Democratic congresscritters crossed the aisle to pass the latest defence spending bill - not that unusual, given their swing districts and being up for election - but they did so with the "SAVE" act attached to it.
Apparently, they have all the self-preservation instinct of the mythical #lemmings from Mutual of Omaha's Wild Fabrication. Because the entire point of the #SAVE act is to disenfranchise as many Democratic-leaning voters as possible. This isn't speculation; it's easy to read in the measures that it calls for, but more than that, #Trump has explicitly described it that way over the last few months.
The #Democrats frequently do not need the #GOP to ratf*ck them [1]; as here, they're quite capable of doing it to themselves.
Everyone who cares about preserving #US democracy, such as it is, needs to yell at their #senators to ensure this monstrosity doesn't pass in the Senate. There's been lots of talk of it not having the votes there, but that was said about other things that (eventually) got passed as well.
[1] Don't blame me for the language. A US president brought the term into wide use.
#USPol #USCongress #DemocraticParty #SAVE #USSenate #ElectionStealing #elections #disenfranchise #voters #MutualOfOmaha #MutualOfOmahasWildKingdom #fabrication #SAVEAct
-
‘A politically impossible situation’: New poll shows Trump voters losing patience with Iran war
Half of President Donald Trump’s MAGA base thought the Iran war was worth its economic costs in May.…
#NewsBeep #News #BreakingNews #breakingnews #GasPrices #Iran #iranwar #PresidentDonaldTrump #voters #WhiteHouse
https://www.newsbeep.com/657482/ -
PsyPost: Are AI chatbots a threat to democracy? New study explores their persuasive power. “Two survey experiments comparing the cost-effectiveness of using LLM chatbots to persuade voters estimated that LLM-based persuasion costs $48 to $75 per voter, versus $100 for traditional methods, while being equally persuasive. However, they also found that traditional methods currently scale more […]
https://rbfirehose.com/2026/07/21/psypost-are-ai-chatbots-a-threat-to-democracy-new-study-explores-their-persuasive-power/
