Risky appeals: The electoral consequences of group-targeted campaign pledges

Abstract Parties frequently target campaign promises on specific social groups, yet we lack evidence on whether such targeting yields greater electoral pay-offs than broad-based universalistic pledges. We address this gap with a pre-registered survey experiment fielded in Germany in 2024 ( N = 3,500). We expose respondents to a fictional electoral campaign scenario featuring posters promising additional public spending either to the general population (broad-based pledge), or to a specific group – parents, pensioners, or rural residents (group-targeted pledge) – and examine how voters respond. We theorize that group targeting should raise the salience of party-group linkages and therefore boost support among voters who (1) belong to the target group, (2) identify with this group, and/or (3) view it as deserving. At the same time, it may alienate others who perceive such pledges as unfair. We find no consistent evidence that group-targeted pledges outperform broad-based ones in generating electoral support – even among intended beneficiaries. Instead, responses to targeted appeals are strongly moderated by group belonging and perception: support remains stable or slightly lower among intended beneficiaries, but drops substantially among other respondents. These patterns suggest that rather than securing net electoral gains, group-targeted promises can provoke exclusion-driven losses that outweigh limited ingroup appeal. More broadly, the study highlights how identity and deservingness perceptions shape voter reactions to realistic campaign pledges – and how even appeals to normatively ‘deserving’ or majoritarian groups may risk narrowing rather than broadening electoral support.