Intercandidate agenda setting in the 2004 Democratic presidential primary

This study assesses candidate issue agendas and intercandidate agenda setting during the 2004 Democratic primary campaign. Candidate press releases, downloaded from official Web sites of Wesley Clark (n = 232), Howard Dean (n = 328), John Edwards (n = 512), and John Kerry (n = 459), are used to construct candidate issue agendas for each month spanning October 2003 through February 2004. This study investigates prominent issues among candidate agendas, agenda consistency, and intercandidate agenda-setting effects. Despite consistent issue agendas among the leading primary candidates, intercandidate agenda-setting effects were evidenced in each month of the primary campaign.