Nonspatial Candidate Characteristics and Electoral Competition

Abstract

BASIC TO MODELS of electoral competition is the assumption that candidates adopt positions on policy issues as a means of attracting votes. However, candidates are also judged on the basis of human qualities and other attributes not related to the policies they espouse in a campaign. The spatial theory of electoral competition has, in the past, treated such attributes as part of the policy space over which candidates compete. However, certain difficulties attend such an interpretation. For example, it is difficult to view a candidate's personality as something which can be altered to please the voters. The mistakes that an incumbent has committed in office are not things he can erase to compete more effectively for votes. A candidate's religion cannot be abandoned because it is a political liability. In short, there are nonspatial attributes that affect voter evaluations of each candidate, which are beyond that candidate's immediate control. It is the purpose of this paper to incorporate these nonspatial attributes into the spatial model of electoral competition to show how the policy outcome of two candidate electoral competition is af-