Reassessing Proximity Voting: Expertise, Party, and Choice in Congressional Elections

Abstract

Spatial theories of voting are appealing because they link voters’ electoral choices to candidates’ policy positions. Yet if voters lack political sophistication and awareness of candidate positions, they may not measure up to the cognitive demands of spatial voting models. Using district experts to ascertain House candidates’ positions on the same liberal-conservative scale as in a survey of constituents, we find that proximity voting is common, even among voters unaware of candidates’ ideological positions. Since voting based on party identification or presidential approval often produces votes consistent with the spatial model, such alternative decision rules explain this result by serving as powerful proxies for proximity voting. In addition, facilitator variables such as involvement in politically expert interpersonal networks, the ideological difference between candidates, and voters’ distance from the district ideological cut point help explain proximity voting.