Vote Share Of Candidates Research Articles

Competence in the Eye of the Electorate: Appearance, Incumbency, and Vote Shares

AbstractPrior studies have documented incumbency advantage for electoral candidates. A largely unrelated strand of literature has shown that perceived competence of candidates, as inferred from their physical appearance, also predicts their electoral success. We draw upon the framework of statistical discrimination and the dual‐system theory of human cognition to understand the relationship between a political candidate's vote share, physical appearance, and incumbency status. Voters possess relatively richer information about incumbents compared to challengers. Perceived competence of candidates, as inferred from their physical appearance, is therefore expected to have a relatively weaker influence on voters' decisions to vote for incumbents. Data from Australian state elections support this prediction.

Stop Suffering! Economic Downturns and Pentecostal Upsurge

AbstractThis paper estimates the effects of economic downturns on the expansion of Pentecostal Evangelicalism in Brazil. Regions more exposed to economic distress experienced a persistent rise both in Pentecostal affiliation and in the vote share of candidates connected to Pentecostal churches in national legislative elections. Once elected, these politicians carry out an agenda with greater emphasis on issues that are sensitive to fundamental religious principles. We, therefore, find that recessions led to the rise of religious fundamentalism in tandem with the transfer of political capital to elected Pentecostal leaders.

How Do Interest Groups Influence Elections? Evidence from British Trade Unions 1900-2019

Trade unions sponsored the political campaigns of candidates running for office in many countries throughout the 20th century. Yet little is known about the electoral consequences of these sponsorship arrangements. I study how union sponsorship affected the electoral performance of parliamentary candidates in Great Britain (1900-2019). On the basis of archival material, I collect new data on universe of union-sponsored candidates, and new data on all parliamentary candidates and their electoral campaigns. Employing a series of difference-in-differences designs, I examine how sponsorship affected candidate nominations and general elections. The results show that attaining a union sponsorship increases the probability that a candidate wins the nomination in an electorally attractive constituency. Second, sponsorship causes an inflow of financial and human resources into constituencies, engendering a professionalization of political campaigns and party organizations. Third, union sponsorship approximately causes a six-percentage-point increase in the average candidate's vote share, and two-thirds of this advantage is driven by nomination in better constituencies, while campaign spending account for the remaining boost in performance. Finally, heterogeneity in the treatment effect indicates that the electoral influence of unions is strongest in time periods and in industries where substantial government interventions affected the labor market.

Do campaign posters trigger voting based on looks? Probing an explanation for why good-looking candidates win more votes

Numerous studies document that better-looking candidates win more votes. Yet the causal mechanisms leading to this advantage remain unexplored. We consider for the first time a potential trigger of the looks–vote association that has previously been suggested but not tested in the literature: exposure to campaign posters of the candidates. We test this explanation with German election survey data, which we augment with ratings—provided by MTurk workers from the U.S.—of the attractiveness and facial competence of about 1,000 district candidates. Confirming previous studies on Germany, we find that attractiveness is positively associated with candidate vote share (1.2 ppts. min–max). At the voter level, we find tentative evidence for the idea that the association is moderated by exposure to campaign posters: effects are in the expected directions and their sizes consistent with what we observe at the candidate level, but we cannot always reject the null hypothesis of no effect. In contrast to attractiveness, we do not find conclusive evidence for an effect of facial competence in the election considered. These preliminary results suggest that inundating voters with candidate posters, as in elections in Germany and many other places, might be a reason for voting based on looks.

Can Biased Polls Distort Electoral Results? Evidence From The Lab

In a series of experiments with 375 participants, we investigate the impact of biased polls on election outcomes, when voters have the opportunity to observe and learn about the bias by playing multiple voting rounds. While in control conditions, polls are unbiased, in treatment conditions, participants view only poll results where a particular candidate's vote share is the largest. We find that this candidate is consistently elected more often in the treatments than in the controls, because biased polls robustly distort voters' expectations about vote shares. Remarkably, this effect holds even when voters are \textit{explicitly} informed about the bias. Our results suggest that the anchoring effects of biased polls on participants' beliefs are stronger than potential reactance to biased information.

The Political Economy of Program Enforcement: Evidence from Brazil

AbstractDo politicians manipulate the enforcement of conditional welfare programs to influence electoral outcomes? We study the Bolsa Familia Program (BFP) in Brazil, which provides a monthly stipend to poor families conditional on school attendance. Repeated failure to comply with this requirement results in increasing penalties. First, we exploit random variation in the timing when beneficiaries learn about penalties for noncompliance around the 2008 municipal elections. We find that the vote share of candidates aligned with the president is lower in zip codes where more beneficiaries received penalties shortly before (as opposed to shortly after) the elections. Second, we show that politicians strategically manipulate enforcement. Using a regression discontinuity design, we find weaker enforcement before elections in municipalities where mayors from the presidential coalition can run for reelection. We provide evidence that manipulation occurs through misreporting school attendance, particularly in municipalities with a higher fraction of students in schools with politically connected principals.

Getting Electoral Systems to Count: Does Candidate's Smile Matter in Japan?

Previous studies examining whether introducing the Mixed-Member-Majoritarian (MMM) electoral system to Japan’s lower house in 1994 makes a difference in Japanese politics have stimulated a number of researchers on comparative politics. By introducing the MMM electoral system, especially its single member district plurality (SMDP) tier, researchers have expected to see policy-oriented electoral campaign. Employing the latest cutting-edge face-recognition technology on candidates, we provide new evidences suggesting that the SMDP system encourages party- oriented elections compared to the Single Non-Transferable Vote (SNTV) electoral system which was used prior to 1994 for Japan’s lower house elections. The results of regression analyses using the six lower house election (1980, 1983, 1986, 2000, 2014 and 2017) data show that, compared to the elections under the SNTV, the impact of candidate’s smile on the vote share of candidates under the SMDP has been diminished even after controlling for other covariates.

Truman defeats Dewey: The effect of campaign visits on election outcomes

Political science research suggests that campaign visits by presidential candidates produce small and short-lived effects, consistent with mixed findings of their influence on election returns. We argue that existing studies are constrained by two issues: most studies rely on state-level data, rather than more localized data, and do not incorporate differentiation in the quality of campaign appearances in their assessment of visit effects. To incorporate these concerns in a study of campaign visit effects on election outcomes, we study the 1948 presidential election, during which Harry Truman engaged in a major whistle-stop train tour and won a surprise victory over his opponent, Thomas Dewey. Using data on campaign stops gathered from archival sources, we estimate the effect of campaign appearances on candidate vote share at the county level. We find that Truman, on average, gained 3.06 percentage points of the overall vote share in counties that he visited. Consistent with contemporary judgments of the “quality” of the two candidates' campaign stops, we find no effect of Dewey's appearances on his performance. Our results provide strong evidence that candidate visits can influence electoral returns, rather than merely affect short-term public opinion. In counterfactual simulations, we show that Truman's extensive campaign tour likely won him the state of Ohio, highlighting the importance of strategic campaign decisions and campaign effects in close elections.

Social Media Battles: their Impact during the 2014 Greek Municipal Elections

The purpose of this study is to examine the use of social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube by candidates running for the 2014 Greek Municipal Elections by addressing the following questions: (1) which factors affect social media adoption by municipal candidates?, and (2) whether social media usage along with the popularity of candidates' social media pages influence candidates' vote share. Results indicate that social media are not very popular campaigning tools among municipal candidates in Greece. This implies that Greek candidates still rely on traditional ways to lure their voters. Furthermore, findings reveal that candidates running in large municipalities are more likely to utilize social media (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube) as means of political marketing. In addition, challengers seem to prefer Facebook and Twitter as campaign tools while males tend to focus on YouTube to attract voters. Despite the low adoption rate, results suggest that candidates who made use of social media won more votes compared to candidates who were not social media users. Moreover, it was found that a candidate's Facebook page and YouTube channel popularity are good indicators of the candidate's vote share.

Twittering Public Sentiments: a Predictive Analysis of Pre-Poll Twitter Popularity of Prime Ministerial Candidates for the Indian Elections 2014

Twitter is a useful tool for predicting election outcomes, effectively complementing traditional opinion polling. This study undertakes a volume, sentiment and engagement analysis for predicting the popularity of Prime Ministerial candidates on Twitter as a run-up to the Indian Elections 2014. The results from a survey of 2,37,639 pre-poll tweets finds tweet volume as a significant predictor of candidate vote share, and volume and sentiments as predictors for candidate engagement levels. Higher engagement rates evolve from the horizontality of conversations about the candidate, therefore indicating a high degree of interactivity, but do not translate into a higher vote share.

Ethnic Voting and Accountability in Africa: A Choice Experiment in Uganda

The strong support that African presidents retain among voters of their own ethnicity, despite clear evidence of shirking and corruption, has prompted numerous empirical investigations into whether an incumbent's ethnicity or performance is more important to African voters. The model of vote choice underlying almost all of these studies is additive and implies that either coethnicity or good performance can increase a candidate's vote share. However, there is little theoretical justification for such a model. In the dominant theory of ethnic voting in Africa, coethnicity is a signal of better outcomes, indicating that ethnicity and performance are not separate considerations. Using an experiment that is designed to determine how Ugandan voters make choices, the author shows that the effects of coethnicity and good performance interact: neither attribute increases support for a candidate in the absence of the other. Though previous analyses indicate that, all else being equal, voters always prefer coethnics, this study demonstrates that coethnics only have an advantage when they are not shirkers. Additionally, though previous studies indicate that voters always prefer good performers, this analysis shows that voters are indifferent to the performance of non-coethnic candidates. The article provides evidence that this pattern is in fact a result of voters' beliefs that they will only receive future goods from coethnics, making a demonstrated ability to provide such goods relevant for the electability of coethnic candidates, but not for non-coethnics. Since a large number of African voters do not share the ethnicity of their incumbent, this finding has troubling implications for accountability of African leaders.

Political Parties as a Commitment Technology: Effects of Term Limits on Vote Share

Building on models of electoral competition with reputational mechanisms, I show that term limits decrease the vote share of candidates from parties less able to reward or punish candidates. Candidates suffer by not being able to credibly commit to policies far from their own preferences. Assuming that the major parties can provide better discipline of their members than third parties, the implication of the model is that third party candidates will be worse off, in terms of vote share garnered, in elections for offices with term limits. The hypothesis that third parties do worse under term limits is tested using state gubernatorial elections. Data from 1977–2008 show the vote share of third party candidates is approximately six percent lower in elections for a term-limited office when controlling for other election characteristics and regional and temporal trends in party popularity.

Should Candidates Smile to Win Elections? An Application of Automated Face Recognition Technology

Previous studies examining whether the faces of candidates affect election outcomes commonly measure study participants' subjective judgment of various characteristics of candidates, which participants infer based solely on the photographic images of candidates. We, instead, develop a smile index of such images objectively with automated face‐recognition technology. The advantage of applying this new technology is that the automated process of measuring facial traits is by design independent of voters' subjective evaluations of candidate attributes, based on the images, and thus allows us to estimate “undiluted” effects of facial appearance per se on election outcomes. The results of regression analysis using Japanese and Australian data show that the smile index has statistically significant and substantial effects on the vote share of candidates even after controlling for other covariates.

Do Online Election Campaigns Win Votes? The 2007 Australian “YouTube” Election

Studies of Web use during elections have focused mainly on the content of Web sites and on the major factors driving parties' and candidates' adoption of the technology. Evaluations of the electoral impact of Web campaigns have been more limited. This article examines the nature and extent of Web use by voters and parties in the 2007 Australian federal election, focusing particularly on the consequences of Web 2.0 campaigning for candidate vote share. The findings show differing levels of commitment to older and newer e-campaigning technology across parties and their supporters and significant electoral advantages are associated with minor parties candidates using Web 2.0 campaign tools. The results confirm existing studies' findings about the impact of Web campaigns on contemporary elections, but that these effects are moderated by the type of Web tools used and party using them.

No More Wilder Effect, Never a Whitman Effect: When and Why Polls Mislead about Black and Female Candidates

The 2008 election renewed interest in the Wilder or Bradley effect, the gap between the share of survey respondents expressing support for a candidate and the candidate's vote share. Using new data from 180 gubernatorial and Senate elections from 1989 to 2006, this paper presents the first large-sample test of the Wilder effect. It demonstrates a significant Wilder effect only through the early 1990s, when Wilder himself was Governor of Virginia. Evidence from the 2008 presidential election reinforces this claim. Although the same mechanisms could affect female candidates, this paper finds no such effect at any point in time. It also shows how polls’ overestimation of front-runners’ support can exaggerate estimates of the Wilder effect. Together, these results accord with theories emphasizing how short-term changes in the political context influence the role of race in statewide elections. The Wilder effect is the product of racial attitudes in specific political contexts, not a more general response to underrepresented groups.

Are Ballot Order Effects Heterogeneous?*

Objective. Past research on ballot order effects has typically focused on the average benefit a candidate receives if placed at the top of the ballot. This study addresses a gap in the literature by examining the possibility that a simple average may mask systematic differences in how the ballot order effect varies across candidates and voters.Methods. Using data from all Australian federal elections between 1984 and 2004, a sample that covers 1,187 separate electoral contests and 7,113 candidate × election observations, this study estimates the effect of ballot order on a candidate's share of the primary vote. To determine whether ballot order effects differ across voters as well as candidates, the study also makes use of electorate‐level demographic data from the 1996 and 2001 Australian censuses.Results. The results of these estimations indicate that being placed first on the ballot increases a candidate's vote share by about 1 percentage point. As a proportion of their total vote, this effect is much larger for independents and minor parties than for major parties. The ballot order effect appears to be similar for male and female candidates, and does not show strong trends upward or downward over the 20‐year period covered by our study. Across electorates, the ballot order effect is higher in places where voters are younger and fluency in English is lower.Conclusions. A statistically significant ballot order effect was a consistent feature of Australian federal elections between 1984 and 2004. Moreover, this study challenges the assumption that ballot order effects are homogenous, and finds that the effect of being placed atop the ballot varies across both candidates and voters.

How Much Does Money Matter? 'Buying' Votes in Japan, 1967-1990

Japanese elections are notorious for the money that flows between contributors, politicians, and voters. To date, however, nobody has estimated statistically the impact of this money on electoral outcomes. Students of American politics have discovered that this question is difficult to answer because, while performance may depend on spending, spending may also depend on expected performance - so that there is simultaneous causation to deal with. In this paper, we specify a two-stage least squares model that explains the vote shares of LDP candidates as a function of their own spending, spending by other candidates, and a battery of control variables. Interestingly, the multiple candidate nature of Japanese elections means that district-level demographic variables are largely unrelated to any particular LDP candidate's vote share, allowing us to use these variables to create instruments for campaign spending. Finally, in a necessarily tentative comparison, we find that the marginal dollar of campaign spending buys the spender a great deal more in Japan than is true in the U.S.

Your Money or Your Network: Indicators of Presidential Candidate Viability in the 2008 Nomination Contest

This study examines campaign fundraising, campaign appearances, poll standings and social network supporters as measures of presidential candidate viability in the 2008 nomination contest. Its focus is the early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire and the Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses. We collect and analyze data at both the aggregate and individual state level for the eight Democratic and seven Republican candidates who remained in the race on February 5th. Poll standings, nationally and for individual states, were the strongest predictors of candidate vote share in both the aggregate and individual state contests. Number of Facebook supporters was also positive and significant in the majority of contests. In contrast, cash on hand at the end of the 4th quarter was infrequently significant, sometimes as a positive influence and sometimes a negative influence on vote share. At the state level, the number of events held in the state is not a significant predictor of the candidate's vote share in that contest. We conclude that online campaign activity is an important additional indicator of candidate viability that is independent of traditional measures like campaign funding and poll standings. Moreover, the number of supporters seems to be highly reactive to campaign events: winners of the early Iowa and New Hampshire contests and subsequent Super Tuesday primaries and caucuses evidence a much higher than average increase in supporters than other candidates.

Ethno-Racial Origins of Candidates and Electoral Performance

This article uses the Canadian case to assess whether voter bias plays a role in accounting for the underrepresentation of ethnic minorities, especially racial minorities, in the national legislatures of diverse societies. Two sets of empirical analyses are performed, drawing on the results of the 1993 Canadian general election: survey information on candidates who ran for the major parties and census data on constituency characteristics. The first set tests for overt voter bias against minority candidates by employing several categories of minority origins, party and constituency variables to control for contextual effects, and candidate vote-share as the dependent variable. The second set tests for a more subtle form of bias that is sometimes associated with the need for minority candidates to be exceptionally qualified (‘compensation hypothesis’). The evidence indicates that minorities do not lose votes in elections because of their background and do not need to have more personal credentials in order to gain votes. The results suggest that any misgivings party officials may have about the electoral performance of minority candidates are misplaced.

Money matters in party-centered politics: campaign spending in Korean congressional elections

In this article we focus on the importance of campaign expenditures to electoral outcomes in the culture of Korea where party centralized leadership and regional linkages to political parties have cultivated party-centered politics. Using the candidate's vote share from the 2000 Korean National Assembly elections as the dependent variable, we find that both incumbent and challenger spending have a significant effect on electoral outcomes. As in the case of US congressional elections, challenger spending appears to have a greater effect upon a Korean candidate's vote share than incumbent spending. We also find that, while region is often a critical explanatory factor when examining Korean elections, its importance differs a great deal across the regions of Korea.