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The assumptions that military service helps candidates attract votes - while lacking it harms a candidate's chances - has been an article of faith since the electoral coronation of George Washington in 1789. Perhaps the most compelling fact driving the perception that military service helps win votes is the large number of veterans who have held public office. Some candidates even exaggerate their military service to persuade voters. However, sufficient counter-examples undermine the idea that military veterans enjoy an advantage when seeking political office. In Why Veterans Run, Jeremy Teigen explains the tendency of parties to elevate those with armed forces experience to run for high office. He describes the veteran candidate phenomenon by examining the related factors and patterns, showing why different eras have more former generals running and why the number of veterans in election cycles varies. With both quantitative and qualitative analysis, Why Veterans Run investigates each postwar era in U.S. electoral history and elaborates why so many veterans run for office. Teigen also reveals how election outcomes with veteran candidates illuminate the relationship between the military and civilian spheres as well as the preferences of the American electorate.

An enduring assumption exists in the United States that past military service casts electoral candidates in a positive light. To demonstrate how voters understand candidates' military experiences, it is necessary to understand how their attitudes about a candidate change when exposed to biographic information. This study uses an experimental design to evaluate whether voters see candidates with a military background as better able to handle defense and security issues, are more capable leaders, and whether voters express higher affect toward veteran candidates. Using manipulated television advertising and handbills from an actual election, along with variation of the party information about the candidate, this study finds that voters are unmoved in their impressions of leadership and their affect toward a candidate with military experience. However, potential voters report markedly higher evaluations of candidates' ability to handle defense and security issues when exposed to the military cue, irrespective of party affiliation. [Reprinted by permission; copyright Inter-University Seminar on Armed Forces and Society/Sage Publications Inc.]

An enduring assumption exists in the United States that past military service casts electoral candidates in a positive light. To demonstrate how voters understand candidates' military experiences, it is necessary to understand how their attitudes about a candidate change when exposed to biographic information. This study uses an experimental design to evaluate whether voters see candidates with a military background as better able to handle defense and security issues, are more capable leaders, and whether voters express higher affect toward veteran candidates. Using manipulated television advertising and handbills from an actual election, along with variation of the party information about the candidate, this study finds that voters are unmoved in their impressions of leadership and their affect toward a candidate with military experience. However, potential voters report markedly higher evaluations of candidates' ability to handle defense and security issues when exposed to the military cue, irrespective of party affiliation.

The 2004 U.S. presidential election was a wartime contest that entailed a great deal of discussion about the role that previous military service plays in elections for both candidates and the electorate. Using polling data throughout 2004, this article examines party identification, candidate affect, and vote choice preferences among veterans and nonveterans in the electorate. Despite widespread assumptions depicting the veteran population as deeply Republican, those with military experience in 2004 largely mirrored their nonveteran peers in terms of partisan identification, warmth toward candidates, ballot intentions, and vote choice. One important exception manifested after the "Swift Boat" advertisement in September, which impelled significant numbers of veterans who identify with the Democratic Party to express the intention to vote for George W. Bush.

Military service has the capacity to inculcate members with politically relevant traits that influence political participation later in life. Results from three decades of pooled national cross-sectional data among males indicate that previous experience with the military, the most controlling and least democratic facet of American democracy, has a largely positive effect on turnout propensity. For WWII, Korean War, and post-conscription era veterans, previous military service positively influences turnout when compared to contemporaries without military service, while Vietnam-era veterans exhibited lower turnout rates than non-veteran peers. Evidence suggests that socialization effects rival self-selection bias in explaining increased veteran turnout.