Political Science Faculty Publications and Presentations
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
11-2025
Abstract
Objective
Does it matter “when” a celebrity runs for office? The political scientists who study celebrity candidates need to consider an important insight from communications and media scholars. Fame is a time-dependent variable. Someone who was famous 40 years ago may no longer be widely known today.
Methods
A list of celebrity political candidates who ran for office in the United States between 1865 and 2022 was created to measure campaign success.
Results
In terms of winning an election, it does not matter whether a celebrity candidate runs at the peak of their fame or waits until decades later. What does matter is how famous they are at the time they run for office.
Conclusions
A- and B-list celebrities are more electorally successful than C-list celebrities so long as their ranking tracks their level of fame over time. Future research on this topic needs to account for the ephemeral nature of fame.
Recommended Citation
Longoria, Richard T., and Dana Reyes. "The Irrelevance of “Peak Fame” on Celebrity Candidate Success." Social Science Quarterly 106, no. 6 (2025): e70085. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.70085
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Publication Title
Social Science Quarterly
DOI
10.1111/ssqu.70085
Comments
© 2025 The Author(s). Social Science Quarterly published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Southwestern Social Science Association.
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