Why Do Americans Have an Election Lawn Sign Obsession?

The Townie is an opinion website. The views expressed in this piece belong solely to the author, do not represent those held by The Townie, and should not be interpreted as objective or reported fact.

Thanks to a trip to Finland earlier this month, I experienced a rare bout of culture shock. Not in Finland itself, surprisingly, but upon returning home to Newburyport, where election lawn signs had proliferated like bowls of colorful candy on Halloween. Interrupted by cardboard pinks, purples, blacks, and golds, the fall foliage suddenly dripped with the high-fructose corn syrup equivalent of lawn décor. I considered the countries I’ve visited throughout my decade-long career as a travel journalist, and realized I’d never noticed a single election sign on private property abroad. Is this an American thing, I wondered?

“Yes,” said a friend in the UK, when I called to ask.

“I’m pretty sure that’s illegal here,” another laughed. He’s in Spain.

Like realizing, as a teenager, that putting ketchup on pasta wasn’t normal–that it’s just something kids do—I’m now realizing lawn signs aren’t a global phenomenon, or even a Western phenomenon; it’s just something Americans do. But why?

The US tradition has its roots in the 1828 presidential race between John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson, when campaign merchandise like signs, posters, and buttons were used for the first time. The modern lawn sign didn’t burst onto the scene until the mid-1900s, thanks to advertising agencies who turned the production of campaign merchandise into an industry.

So, on some level, we can blame our country’s obsession with marketing for the advent of the lawn sign. But it goes deeper than that.

Given our highly American, individualistic, get-off-my-lawn mentality, what makes us so eager to stake a giant placard on our private property in service of a stranger’s political ambitions? Surely, it’s because lawn signs make a big electoral difference? Because they can swing an election in favor of our preferred candidate?

Not quite.

A 2015 study by author Donald Green of Columbia University found that lawn signs increase vote share by approximately 1.7 percent — an effect that is “probably greater than zero, but unlikely to be large enough to alter the outcome of a contest that would otherwise be decided by more than a few percentage points.”

While 1.7 percent isn’t nothing, it doesn’t represent a significant enough advantage to explain the complete aesthetic overhaul of neighborhoods and city streets for two whole months. The study also clarifies that signs have the greatest impact when candidates lack name recognition. That would make them even less effective in national races, where candidates already enjoy a high level of name recognition.

Why, then, are signs so ubiquitous? Why don’t we keep our political expressions to the public square, as they do in other countries, privately vote for our preferred candidate, and spare ourselves the neighborhood awkwardness?

The answer is identity crisis. Though American diversity and multiculturalism are to be celebrated, the sheer volume of our population, vastness of our geography, and range of cultures sharing that geography, make it difficult to coalesce around a common set of values. This hit home for me in Finland, a much more homogenous country with a clearly-defined national identity. Though this certainly isn’t an argument for homogeny — history is full of warnings about the pursuit of cultural uniformity — it’s undeniable that a common heritage makes a common identity more likely.

Finns may disagree on the politics of the moment, but they come together around shared traditions of food, music, dance, clothing, and of course, saunas. They don’t need politics to help them understand what it means to be Finnish.

We do.

Staking a sign in your lawn with a stranger’s name on it is akin to flying an American flag on your door, or slapping bumper stickers on your car that elucidate your views on abortion (two other uniquely American traditions). It tells people who you are. Still more importantly, it helps us make sense of ourselves.

It’s easy to understand why a candidate’s close family and friends would be inclined to display a lawn sign. Their devotion goes deeper than surface-level politics. For everyone else, it’s more like sports fanaticism. We attach ourselves to a candidate the same way we support a team and wear the jerseys of its players. We root for their success, register gaffes on the campaign trail like mid-season ankle sprains, and tune in with bated breath hoping they rack up enough points. Being on the winning team makes us special. Smart. Right. Especially those of us who feel like we’re losing in other aspects of our lives.

All political affiliation—especially American politics—is a way of belonging to a team, to a movement. It’s a way of finding community and agreement in a world where we so often feel adrift. That 18×24” piece of cardboard is like painting our skin with tribal colors; it strips us of nuance and reduces us to our allegiances.

As long as we thirst for identity and belonging, we’ll continue to sort ourselves into teams and vie for petty victories over our neighbors. But can we search for identity, and perhaps even find it, without spoiling the fall foliage?

Eben Diskin
Editor, The Townie

Passionate about a local issue? We want to hear from you. Check out our submission guidelines.