Democratic Faces That Could Launch Thousands of Votes

Some of the academic research on beauty and voting goes back decades, to the early 1970s. In 1990, political scientist Lee Sigelman, then at the University of Arizona, posited that Democrats were losing ground nationally, despite an advantage in voter registration, because their looks were a turnoff. He rated all governors and members of Congress on an ugliness scale and found that of the 26 least attractive, 25 were Democrats.

The playing field these days is more level. Research has shown that if candidates invest a little effort in their looks, the payoff can be huge. Campaign consultants hover around candidates, ordering them to change their hairstyles, get in shape and update their wardrobes. "The bar has been raised, without question," said Sigelman, now a George Washington University political science professor.

He singled out three Maryland statewide candidates, Republican Senate nominee Michael S. Steele and gubernatorial rivals Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) and Martin O'Malley (D), "as playing the image game really well." Politicians today, said Sigelman, strive for "the personality and looks of talk show hosts." The goal is to be "well turned out."

One candidate who made a high-impact adjustment is Diane Farrell. The Connecticut Democrat used to wear her blond hair pulled back tight, but after a gentle nudge from a campaign aide, she allowed it to hang loose for a more natural, relaxed look.

The looks factor can be maddening for the opposition. One writer on an anti-Shuler blog expressed annoyance at the candidate's wife, "with all her quips about how cute Shuler is. What a way to decide how to vote!!"

Perhaps not surprisingly, research has shown that voters who are easily swayed by social trends tend to favor more attractive candidates. Conversely, people who resist social trends prefer unattractive candidates.

The latest wave of research examines a possible root of political attraction: how closely candidates and voters resemble each other. A Stanford University study this year suggested that little-known candidates can increase their electoral support by as much as 20 percentage points by tweaking visual features on their campaign materials so they look slightly more like a targeted group of voters, for instance Asians or Hispanics.

The less voters know about the candidates, as in races such as the Arcuri-Meier contest with no incumbent, the more looks seem to matter. An examination of a 2001 British local election by a team of Texas Tech University and University of Plymouth researchers found that, in the absence of facts, people who are considered attractive by survey respondents are more likely to win.

The findings were presented to the American Political Science Association's 2003 annual meeting, with the caveat that they "may offend notions of democracy that candidates should compete fairly and on the basis of issues not appearance."