Pre-election polling and sequential elections

Abstract

I consider a model in which the winner of a primary election faces a third candidate in a general election immediately thereafter. Prior to the primary election, there is a pre-election poll on how voters would vote in a hypothetical general election between one of the candidates in the primary election and the third candidate. I illustrate that voters have an incentive to misrepresent their voting intentions in the pre-election poll in order to influence voter beliefs about candidate electability in the general election and possibly cause voters to vote differently in the primary election.