Red, Blue, and Going for Gold: Partisan Support for Olympic Host Bids
By: Samantha Register
Abstract:Ìý
Recent opposition to Olympic bids in American cities underscores some residents’ disapproval of their cities hosting mega-events. In this study, I test whether partisanship plays a role in residents’ support for a local Olympics bid using survey data from Houston, Texas in 2001 and Ä¢¹½Ó°Òô statewide surveys from 2022 and 2023. I find that Republicans and conservatives were indeed less supportive of using public funds for the Houston 2012 bid. However, the Ä¢¹½Ó°Òô 2022 survey indicates Republicans were more supportive of Denver entering a host bid. To test whether explicitly priming residents to consider public spending activates partisanship, respondents of the 2023 Ä¢¹½Ó°Òô survey received one of two versions of the Olympics bid question, the second of which explicitly mentions spending public funds to win a bid. Results demonstrate that interacting partisanship with the public spending treatment indeed leads to less support for such projects, particularly among Republicans and independents.