American voters more supportive of politicians who support animal welfare

Politicians rarely address the connection between meat and climate change. Perhaps because they worry about voter backlash?

Have you ever noticed how politicians – even ones who champion the issue of climate change – rarely take on the issue of meat? It’s the political equivalent of the phenomenon encountered in the documentary Cowspiracy, where leading environmental non-profits preach about the impact of cars but refuse to mention cows.

Perhaps politicians don’t talk about the negative effects of meat production on the environment and on animals because they worry about voter backlash. In the U.S., even vegan politicians like Cory Booker and leftist environmental proposals like the Green New Deal don’t directly address animal agriculture as an issue.

Using online surveys with representative samples of U.S. citizens, this pair of studies tries to get to the bottom of whether voters really do penalize candidates who appeal to animal rights or environmental reasons to eat less meat.

The impact of a campaign speech

In the first study, a total of 1,827 respondents were asked to rate a hypothetical candidate of their preferred party running in a presidential primary election.

Respondents rated their likelihood of voting for the candidate on a scale of one to seven, while they rated their perceptions of the candidate’s traits (morality, dominance, and likeability) on a scale of one to 11. The hypothetical candidate was named “Tom Larson” to sound like a white male.

Each respondent was presented with one of four different versions of a political campaign speech from this hypothetical primary presidential election candidate:

The first version (the control condition) didn’t mention the environment or animal welfare;
The second version mentioned the need to eat less meat and dairy for environmental reasons;
The third version mentioned the need to drive fewer gas-powered vehicles for environmental reasons; and
The fourth version mentioned the importance of protecting animals, particularly farmed animals.

On average, candidates whose speeches mentioned the environmental costs of gas-powered vehicles and candidates whose speeches mentioned farmed animal welfare were not rated differently on the voting likelihood scale compared to candidates in the control condition. However, candidates whose speeches mentioned the environmental costs of meat were rated an average of about 0.6 points lower on the voting likelihood scale compared to candidates in the control condition.

Additionally, candidates who mentioned the environmental costs of meat were rated as slightly less likeable, and candidates who mentioned farmed animal welfare were rated as slightly less moral.

In some cases, the average effects were different for certain subgroups of respondents:

Democrats versus Republicans: When presented with candidates who mentioned the environmental costs of gas-powered vehicles, Republicans rated their likelihood to vote for these candidates around 0.3 points lower, whereas Democrats rated these candidates around 0.4 points higher. When it came to candidates who mentioned the environmental costs of meat, Republicans rated their likelihood of voting for these candidates about 1.1 points lower, whereas Democrats didn’t rate these candidates significantly higher or lower than in the control condition.
Urban versus rural residents: Rural respondents rated their likelihood to vote for candidates who mentioned the environmental costs of meat roughly 1.4 points lower compared to the control condition, whereas urban respondents rated these candidates roughly 0.4 points lower.

The impact of a candidate’s background

In the second study, a different group of 857 respondents were asked to decide between two presidential primary candidates based on their (made-up) resumes. Candidate information varied by resume and included a mix of different characteristics in terms of:

Dietary preference (none, vegetarian, or vegan)
Companion animals (no pets, cats, dogs, or rescued farmed animals)
Support for animal rights laws (doesn’t support, moderate supporter, or strong supporter)
Race (White, Latino/a, or Black)
Gender (man or woman)

All else being equal, respondents were 9% more likely to favor candidates who had rescued farmed animals as pets and 17% more likely to favor candidates who were strong supporters of animal rights laws. There were no significant differences between Democrats and Republicans in favoring such candidates.

However, vegan candidates were 6% less likely to be favored on average, and even less so by Republicans. These are surprising findings as one might believe that Republicans would dislike supporters of animal rights. Instead, it seems that Republican distaste is more so directed at vegans.

The results of these studies show that voter backlash against animal-friendly candidates may not exist in every case. The author highlights that both Democrats and Republicans supported candidates who mentioned the need to protect farmed animals in the first study. Likewise, both Democrats and Republicans favored candidates who had rescued farmed animals as pets, as well as candidates who supported animal rights laws in the second study. These results may be surprising, but they do align with the strong support for farmed animal protection referendums that have passed in 12 states so far. Perhaps there’s more room for animal advocacy and support for animal rights laws among political leaders than assumed.

While real-world voting patterns may be different from those found in these controlled studies, the results provide hope that politicians who publicly support farmed animal protection can be popular among both Democrats and Republicans. Voter backlash seems to be activated mainly when candidates mention meat reduction or signal a vegan identity, especially in Republicans. However, voters seem to respond well to politicians who talk about farmed animal welfare and who support animal rights laws.

These results can inform campaign strategies for future animal-friendly laws and candidates. Advocates can take from this study (and others) an important lesson: the way an issue is framed (e.g., mandating reduced meat consumption versus protecting farmed animal rights) can be the difference between voter backlash and voter support. Moreover, even Republicans who are wary of climate change messaging and veganism can be won over in other ways.

Original source: https://faunalytics.org