<p>The United States experienced a substantial and sustained policy shift towards more punitive policies in the late twentieth century. While public punitiveness has been identified as key to understanding these changes, the exact role of public attitudes in promoting these and similar policies remains contested. Two key arguments explaining the punitive turn and the relationship between public views and political dynamics are the elite manipulation thesis and the democracy-at-work thesis. Using data from the American National Election Survey, this study examines how the proximity of the presidential election affects public punitiveness. As the presidential election nears, we expect that respondents will indicate higher levels of punitiveness (represented by support for the death penalty), since politicians are more active closer to the election and their rhetoric may be heard by more people. We find that respondents who were interviewed closer to election day were generally no more or less punitive than those interviewed further away from election day. These results indicate that election proximity does not broadly influence punitiveness but may trigger changes in attitudes for specific sectors of society, such as Republicans and Non-White individuals.</p>