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Professor Gianmarco Daniele
Associate Professor
University of Milan

We study the role of office-holders in the formation of political preferences during childhood. Leveraging data on 200 million registered voters and a regression discontinuity design based on gubernatorial elections we show that U.S. state governors systematically shift voters’ partisan alignment toward their own party. The effects are concentrated among individuals who were between the ages of 7 and 17 during a governor’s tenure. Growing up under exclusively Republican governors, compared to Democratic ones, increases the probability of being a registered Republican in adulthood by 9 percentage points. We further document lasting impacts on primary participation, partisan donations, and survey-based attitudes. Consistent with political socialization via state power, effects are larger where governors face fewer institutional constraints and hold authority over the education policy.