Abstract
In recent years, a wide range of techniques has been developed to predict electoral results and to measure the influence of different factors in these results. In this paper, we analyze the influence of the political profile of candidates (characterized by personal and political features) and their campaign effort (characterized by electoral expenditure and by territorial deployment strategies retrieved from social networks activity) on the electoral results. This analysis is carried out by using three of the most frequent data analyitcs algorithms in the literature. For our analysis, we consider the 2017 Parliamentary elections in Chile, which are the first elections after a major reform of the electoral system, that encompassed a transition from a binomial to a proportional system, a modification of the districts’ structure, an increase in the number of seats, and the requirement of gender parity in the lists of the different coalitions. The obtained results reveal that, regardless of the political coalition, the electoral experience of candidates, in particular in the same seat they are running for (even when the corresponding district is modified), is by large the most influential factor to explain the electoral results. However, the attained results show that the influence of other features, such as campaign expenditures, depends on the political coalition. Additionally, by means of a simulation procedure, we show how different levels of territorial deployment efforts might impact on the results of candidates. This procedure could be used by parties and coalitions when planning their campaign strategies.
Highlights
Introduction and MotivationElectoral systems are distributive political institutions that are formed by transforming votes into seats [1]
Considering the existing literature, and the quality of the attained results, and our contribution is threefold: (i) we introduce the concept of territorial deployment, which might encode a variety of variables associated to the way that candidates and coalitions organize their campaigning agenda with respect to the territory that they represent; (ii) we show that, regardless of the unusual situation induced by the rearrangement of districts, incumbency remains as a key feature of candidates in the electoral process; and (iii) we present valuable insights regarding how the influence of the considered variables depends on the political coalition of candidates
As described in the previous section, the sample was subdivided into a set with which the three algorithms were trained and another in which the 2017 predictions for the electoral race for access to seats in the Honorable Chamber of Deputies of Chile were implemented
Summary
Introduction and MotivationElectoral systems are distributive political institutions that are formed by transforming votes into seats [1]. The natural goal of the candidates is to maximize their electoral advantage (i.e., win the number of votes that will allow them to access the presidential seat or a seat in the parliament), an interest that extends to parties and coalitions, which seek to outperform their political opposition in the number of elected representatives. To maximize these advantages, parties must make two critical decisions: (i) select the candidates with the greatest potential to be elected—usually incumbents—and (ii) design their campaign strategies, either aiming at reinforcing the allegiance of voters already aligned with the party or its candidates—called personal votes—or at seeking the support of the other part of the electoral register. Election outcomes have been forecast based on the political profile of a candidate and/or the profile of the voters of the respective electoral district; examples of this type of forecasting are seen in the parliamentary elections of 2010 in the USA (see [2]) or in the 2017 presidential and parliamentary elections in
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