So you’ve probably heard that there’s  a US presidential election coming up.

And the candidates have spent months  honing their strategies for how to win it. But one difference in tactics  that you may not have noticed is in what names they use in their campaign.

See, Kamala Harris uses her first name  a lot more often than Donald Trump does. And the evidence says that this matters. The name a candidate uses when running  for office can really sway voters.

Like, researchers have found that  certain qualities of a person’s name can swing the popular vote for or against them. So here’s what they’ve learned about  the ideal political candidate’s name, and how the politicians in this year’s races  are using that info to their advantage. [♪ INTRO] Before we get started, I should mention that  we’re going to keep our political opinions about the candidates out of this video. SciShow is not in the business  of telling you who to vote for.

And I’m sure everybody in  the comments of this video is also going to be super respectful about this. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s  get into the psychology of voting. There are a lot of seemingly silly  things that influence who we vote for.

And the name on the ballot is one of them. But like, what’s in a name, really? Some might roll off the tongue easier than others.

Some names invoke certain stereotypes or  associations with previous politicians. And some names just feel right  for that person and that time. Research suggests that names make a  significant difference in who people vote for.

So much so that a researcher at Eastern  Washington University did an analysis of election results and made a list of the best and  worst qualities a candidate’s name can have. The ideal president’s name has two syllables, with the stress on the first  one, like Donald or Harris. That actually fits a common pattern  with names of fictional characters, especially in children’s media.

Just ask Bluey, or Clifford, or Dora. That study also found that a name  with an “r” after a stop consonant like a P, K, or T, tends to perform better. And that’s because the “r” sound  starts off with firm emphasis, and transitions to a softer, less stressed sound.

So the R in Trump fits this rule,  but the Rs in Harris do not. And the best case scenario is to end with  the long, soft sound of an “n,” like Green. Just think of all the US presidents  whose names have ended in N.

You’ve got Lincoln, Clinton, Nixon, Blinken, Blitzen, Comet? Anyway…When it comes to names, you  usually have to work with what you’ve got, unless you are willing to go through  a name change just to run for office, which might look inauthentic. So, you also have to think about that.

But there are ways to stack the deck, so to speak. For instance, candidates and reporters  can highlight either a first or last name, to showcase qualities that research  suggests will play well with voters. The thing is, Kamala Harris and  Donald Trump are both kind of mixed in terms of fulfilling all of those  things that sound nice to a voter’s ear.

Harris ends on an “s,” which this study  concluded is actively bad for votes because it draws attention to the end of the name, despite generally wanting the  emphasis to be at the beginning. So the name “Harris” has some  good and some bad qualities when stacked up against the most successful  names in US presidential elections. And while the name “Trump”  doesn’t have all those factors, it does sound assertive, which  fits that candidate really well.

Now, the big, big asterisk on all of those  rules is that they describe how voters base their decisions on a name,  without knowing about the policies. When voters know what the candidates’ actual  policies are, their name doesn’t matter. Speaking of exceptions, all of  this is probably going to vary based on the culture and  language of the people voting.

Especially because things like  pronounceability influence votes. And something that’s easy  to pronounce in one language can be hard to pronounce in another. But we know from this election  that Donald Trump is a name that’s easy to pronounce for many US voters, while Kamala Harris’s first name  has been a little harder for some.

One study looked over decades  of election data from California and found that more pronounceable  names get more votes. The author of that study, whose last  name was, coincidentally, Harris, credited that increase to voters  having an easier time just reading the name. People even associate name pronunciation with  qualities like truthfulness and likeability.

So that’s the kind of thing  that a candidate can’t change. But they can choose to  highlight one of their names if it has more politically advantageous  associations than the other. The question is: which name gives  them the best chance of success?

Studies have found that when candidates  are talked about using their first names, they also end up having their  accomplishments downplayed. When the media uses first names, the  coverage almost always removes titles of Senator, Vice President, President, or whatever  other status that politician has achieved. So in a way, they’re losing a perception of power.

But there are other candidates  who could really benefit from highlighting their last name  for totally different reasons. Say, if their name is very recognizable. Like, I don’t know, Kennedy.

They would probably get a political  advantage from their last name. One study on Belgian politics found that  people are more likely to be selected as candidates by their parties when they have names  that are associated with political families. And, amazingly, we have actually  made it this far in the video without mentioning a gender bias.

But we have to talk about that  elephant/donkey in the room. This SciShow video is supported  by the Presidents of Science: McLaren Stanley and Charlie Stanley! Thanks to them and our other patrons, this  video is free for anyone and everyone to watch.

So as long as you have internet  access, you can learn here on SciShow. They also help pay the writers  and fact checkers and animators and all of the people who worked on this video. If you’re able, you can do that  too at patreon.com/SciShow.

A study on Hillary Rodham Clinton’s  2008 presidential primary campaign found that male reporters referred to her  by her first name four times more often than female reporters did. And when they did that, they often  omitted her title of Senator. So she lost that acknowledgement  of her power and status.

And this primary in particular  is a good example because she and President Obama were  super similar as candidates. They’re both Ivy League educated  lawyers turned Senators. They also proposed overlapping  policies, and, if elected, would become the first President from  their respective political minority group.

Now there’s a question of how much of  the reporting is influenced by how the candidates market themselves, using their  first or last name on campaign materials. Yes, Clinton primarily used her first  name on lawn signs and Obama did not. But male candidates who have gone by their  first name in their campaign materials haven’t historically been referred to  more by their first names in the media.

So the media’s tendency to use  “Hillary” over “Senator Clinton” probably happened because Hillary  Rodham Clinton is a woman. Now, the fact that one candidate  is a woman and another candidate is a man definitely makes a difference  in how voters think of them. The more feminine a candidate’s name sounds,  the fewer votes they are predicted to get.

Especially among Republican candidates. And it turns out that men whose names are  more feminine sounding also get fewer votes. Sorry to all the male Leslies out there.

So everyone with male sounding  names gets more votes. That bodes well for Donald,  but not as well for Kamala. Even if she campaigns using her last  name, Kamala Harris is more likely to be referred to by her first name  in the media than Donald Trump is, just because she’s a woman.

At the end of the day, I hope—and  I think that it is true—that most   people vote based on policies rather than names. But for a more complete list of the  random stuff we base our votes on, check our other SciShow video. And regardless of who you wanna vote for, if  you are eligible to vote in this election, you can go to vote.org to check and  make sure that you’re registered, to find out all your status,  and where your polling place is, and if you can vote absentee,  and all that kind of stuff.

It’s really easy. Vote.org Very easy to remember. We’ll put a link in the description. [♪ OUTRO]