Candidates Win Research Articles

Political Consequences of Consumer Debt Relief

Abstract Many democracies operate consumer debt relief programs. These are often implemented or adjusted during the election cycle, but their political effects are not well-understood. We investigate if debt relief can influence high-stakes elections. We utilize quasi-experimental variation generated by a very large privately-funded debt relief program enacted in the Republic of Georgia during the presidential election in 2018 that affected every sixth voter. We estimate that the program helped the incumbent candidate win that election, and that its effects persisted. Overall, we show how economic power can translate into political power in a democracy.

Voting according to one’s political stances is difficult: Problems definition, computational hardness, and approximate solutions

This paper studies the computational complexity of two voting problems where the goal is deciding how a given voter should vote to favour their personal stances. In the first problem, given (a) the voter stance towards each law that will be voted by the parliament and (b) the political stance of each party towards each law (all party members are assumed to vote according to it), the goal is finding the parliamentary seats distribution maximizing the number of laws that will be approved/rejected as desired by the voter. In the second problem no parliament is involved, but a single issue with several possible answers is voted by citizens in a presidential election with several candidates. The problem consists in deciding how a group of voters, split in different electoral districts, all of them supporting the same candidate, should vote to make their candidate president. It is assumed that (a) all delegates of each electoral district are assigned to the candidate winning in the district, (b) after the election day, candidates may ask their assigned delegates to support other candidates receiving more votes than them, and these post-electoral supporting stances are known in advance by the electorate, and (c) the group of voters that is coordinated knows the votes that will be cast by the rest of the electorate. For each problem, its NP-hardness as well as its inapproximability are proved. This implies that something as essential as exercising the democratic right to vote, in such a way that the voting choice will be the best for the voter’s political stances, is at least NP-hard. It is also shown how genetic algorithms can be used to obtain reasonable solutions in practice despite the limitations of theoretical approximation hardness.

The effect of regime change on entrepreneurship: A real options approach with evidence from US gubernatorial elections

Although political turnover is said to be a healthy component of the business environment, the literature is equivocal about the effects of regime change on early-stage entrepreneurial activity. I present incumbent displacement—the electoral defeat of an incumbent political party's candidate—as a source of regime change, and I analyze how this affects business formation through the lens of real options theory. I test my theory using US gubernatorial elections from 2004 to 2022, leveraging a Regression Discontinuity design to compare changes in business formation trends following elections where a challenger party candidate wins or loses by a close margin. I find that regime change reduces venture creation activity for growth-oriented ventures specifically. I also find evidence of a partial rebound in subsequent months—suggestive that some entrepreneurs delay entry while others permanently abandon their ventures.

May the Intentional Candidate Win: The Effect of Global Performance Information on Intentionality Attributions and Managerial Hot‐Hand Predictions

ABSTRACTIn organizational contexts, managers often have to judge and predict others' performance. Previous research has consistently shown that when predicting someone's performance, people expect that a local sequence of successful outcomes will continue—the hot‐hand. The present work proposes that hot‐hand predictions occur when local streaks are dispositionally attributed to the agents' intentionality and explores how the inclusion of global performance success rates may guide intentionality inferences and moderate predictions of success after a streak. Three studies, using within‐ and between‐subjects' designs, manipulate agent's global success rate and show that after a local streak, intentionality attributions and predictions of success are lower when success rates are low (vs. high or unknown); intentionality attributions mediate the effect of success rate on predictions; hot‐hand predictions are lower for low success rate agents (vs. high or unknown) as they are not perceived as more responsible for streaky than for alternated performances.

Celebrating Wins, Lamenting Losses in the Aftermath of Presidential Elections

Abstract: In this paper, we examine media use in the aftermath of the 2004, 2012, and 2020 presidential elections in the United States. Specifically, we test whether members of the party who won the election bask in reflected glory (BIRG; i.e., seek out pro-attitudinal media after preferred candidate wins) or whether members of the losing party cut off reflected failure (CORF; i.e., cut off ties with their party after a loss by decreasing their use of pro-attitudinal media). We also examine whether individuals whose candidate lost use pro-attitudinal media to repair their identity, or engage in information utility behaviors by seeking out counter-attitudinal information to learn about the opposing party following their win. Using two waves of survey data from the 2004, 2012, and 2020 US presidential elections, we find support for the BIRGing hypothesis. However, we did not find support for any of the hypotheses associated with losing the elections.

Ballot Length in Instant Runoff Voting

Instant runoff voting (IRV) is an increasingly-popular alternative to traditional plurality voting in which voters submit rankings over the candidates rather than single votes. In practice, elections using IRV often restrict the ballot length, the number of candidates a voter is allowed to rank on their ballot. We theoretically and empirically analyze how ballot length can influence the outcome of an election, given fixed voter preferences. We show that there exist preference profiles over k candidates such that up to k-1 different candidates win at different ballot lengths. We derive exact lower bounds on the number of voters required for such profiles and provide a construction matching the lower bound for unrestricted voter preferences. Additionally, we characterize which sequences of winners are possible over ballot lengths and provide explicit profile constructions achieving any feasible winner sequence. We also examine how classic preference restrictions influence our results—for instance, single-peakedness makes k-1 different winners impossible but still allows at least Ω(√k). Finally, we analyze a collection of 168 real-world elections, where we truncate rankings to simulate shorter ballots. We find that shorter ballots could have changed the outcome in one quarter of these elections. Our results highlight ballot length as a consequential degree of freedom in the design of IRV elections.

Diversity Matters: The Election of Asian Americans to U.S. State and Federal Legislatures

Despite substantial research on descriptive representation for Blacks and Latinos, we know little about the electoral conditions under which Asian candidates win office. Leveraging a new dataset on Asian American legislators elected from 2011 to 2020, combined with pre-existing and newly conducted surveys, we develop and test hypotheses related to Asian American candidates’ ingroup support, and their crossover appeal to other racial and ethnic groups. The data show Asian Americans preferring candidates of their own ethnic origin and of other Asian ethnicities to non-Asian candidates, indicating strong ethnic and panethnic motives. Asian candidates have comparatively strong crossover appeal, winning at higher rates than Blacks or Latinos for any given percentage of the reference group. All else equal, Asian American candidates fare best in multiracial districts, so growing diversity should benefit their electoral prospects. This crossover appeal is not closely tied to motives related to relative group status or threat.

Do voters prefer educated candidates? How candidate education influences vote choice in congressional elections

Previous research shows that democracies are more likely to produce educated politicians, but is this because voters prefer educated representatives or because of other features of the democratic process? Education may serve as a signal of candidate quality to voters or it may simply be associated with other factors, such as access to campaign funds, that help candidates win elections. We address this puzzle by analyzing head-to-head matches between candidates in US House elections from 2002 to 2012 along with a conjoint experiment. We find evidence that candidates with higher levels of education win more votes than candidates with lower levels of education, even after we account for standard indicators of candidate quality and campaign spending. This education premium not only garners more votes, but it also translates into higher probabilities of winning. The experimental results and sensitivity analyses show that it is unlikely that these results are explained by a hidden confound. The experiment also illuminates that the education premium flows from perceptions of candidate qualification and ability to pursue respondent interests.

Communication of Political Identity & Indonesian Presidential Candidacy in the 2024 Election

So far, the presidential election in Indonesia has been a public concern. President Jokowi, in his second term as President, is suspected of wanting to run for a third term if allowed by existing regulations. The emergence of presidential candidates for the 2024 period from his ministers is a challenge for Jokowi. Anisbaswedan, the former governor of Jakarta, was appointed by the Nasdem party as one of the presidential candidates. Thus, the writer addresses the above phenomena and examines the future prospects and identity communication built by respective parties. This study uses political identity, identity communication, and a constructive approach using library research. The data used comes from library sources, both in the form of text in books, articles, papers, and other written sources. This research belongs to the descriptive-analytic research category, which describes and analyzes comprehensively the Indonesian 2024 President. Source of data obtained from primary and secondary literature. The primary data source is the literature on identity and communication. Sources from the internet are used in this study as an additional reference. The research results were analyzed descriptively. They used theories such as the theory of communication, identity, and constructivism. The research results show that the identity communication of the Indonesian presidential candidate must accommodate the majority of people in terms of race, culture, and religion. East Java, Central Java, and West Java, for example, are high in population than other provinces in the region, which mostly determine the candidate's win. Postponing the presidential election is another possible case, in case Mr. Jokowi wins the Constitution Commission and grants of Indonesian Constitution for his third period.

Celebrity Brand Personality and Politics in West Bengal: An Explorative Study

Marketers have traditionally utilized celebrities to boost brand appeal by attracting attention and increasing memory rates, which is true in politics. However, research on the impact of celebrities on politics is new, and results are varied as to whether their endorsements and statements help in changing voters’ attitudes and behaviors. This study aimed to explore the effect of celebrity endorsement for a political party or celebrity candidate on people’s voting behavior. This is a mixed methods study. A community-based cross-sectional design was adopted for the study at Kolkata port and Maniktala constituencies (authors refer to Kolkata city) in the Kolkata district of West Bengal. Thematic analysis was used for qualitative data in this study using NVivo 12, whereas data entry and analysis were carried out with the help of Excel and Stata for quantitative data. About 16% of respondents reported being entirely influenced by the actor or actress’s election campaign. In contrast, 24% are not affected. Three-fifths of the respondents are somewhat influenced. It may be inferred that celebrity endorsement in political campaigns is one of the main elements determining the likelihood of a particular political party or candidate winning or losing an election. At the same time, it cannot always be since various individuals have varied perspectives about each party, and not everyone supports a party or candidate just because their favorite celebrity endorses it. More study is needed to understand this neglected arena of research. Thus, this article focuses on credibility as a key dimension.

Do voting and election outcomes predict changes in conspiracy beliefs? Evidence from two high-profile U.S. elections

Despite widespread recognition that conspiracy theories carry the potential for serious harm, relatively little research has investigated possible antidotes to conspiracy beliefs. Previous theorizing posits that belief in conspiracy theories is driven in part by existential motives related to a sense of control and social motives aimed at maintaining a positive image of oneself and one's ingroup. Using electoral contests as the context, we investigated whether the act of voting (i.e., addressing existential motives) and seeing one's preferred candidate win (i.e., addressing social motives) were associated with a reduction in conspiracy beliefs. In two two-wave studies of high-profile U.S. elections, we measured endorsement of conspiracy beliefs before the election and after the results were known, thereby tracking change in conspiracy belief endorsement over time. Both Study 1 (2020 U.S. Presidential election) and Study 2 (2021 Georgia Senate runoff election) showed a significant decrease in conspiracy beliefs among people who supported the winning candidate, consistent with the importance of social motives. The findings highlight the merits of one's political ideology receiving support and recognition for potentially abating conspiracy beliefs.

Winners’ Consent? Citizen Commitment to Democracy When Illiberal Candidates Win Elections

AbstractDemocracy is in decline worldwide, primarily because voters elect candidates harboring antidemocratic aspirations. Scholars argue that elections animate the democratic spirits of winners and deflate those of losers, but what about contests ending in the victory of authoritarian candidates? To answer this question, we consider the dynamics of commitment to democracy in Brazil's 2018 presidential campaign. Drawing on AmericasBarometer data and an original five‐wave panel survey, we confirm that Jair Bolsonaro's campaign attracted skeptics of democracy. Although his election and inauguration boosted his supporters’ allegiance to the political system, it also exacerbated their tolerance for institutional ruptures such as executive‐led coups. Meanwhile, election losers retained their democratic commitments. As a result, the authoritarian victory narrowed preexisting winner–loser gaps in support for the political system, but widened gaps in tolerance for certain antidemocratic maneuvers. Thus, authoritarian electoral victories can foster short‐term satisfaction among democracy's critics while abetting future instability.

OPPOSITION CANDIDACY AND ELECTORAL POLITICS IN TANZANIA: THE CASE OF ZITTO ZUBERI KABWE

In an electoral environment where the playing field is highly contested, it is pertinent to learn how opposition candidates win elections. This narrative case study draws from observation of parliamentary elections in Kigoma North and Kigoma Urban constituencies in Tanzania to demonstrate how the opposition candidate maneuvered to outcompete candidates of the ruling party. It reveals that winning elections involves preparations for real or perceived electoral fraud. The paper uncovers practical strategies that opposition candidates’ in Tanzania use to counter election fraud and the challenges they are likely to face. These findings reinforce existing research on electoral integrity.

The odd one out: The influence of ideological positioning on individual electoral success

Within many countries, voters not only have to cast a vote for a political party, but also have the option to select (a) candidate(s) within that party, a so-called preferential vote. Recent studies indicate that several factors influence the success of candidates within this intra-party competition, such as ballot list position, political experience, and socio-demographic characteristics. However, it has not yet been investigated whether ideology also matters for intra-party success. This study investigates the role of the ideological position of candidates within their party on the share of preferential votes they obtain. Can candidates win preferential votes by taking ideological niche positions within the party? To investigate this question, the study uses data from a candidate survey conducted during the 2014 Belgian elections in which candidates were asked to position themselves ideologically. The results of this study indicate that ideology does not play a strong role within the intra-party competition.

Gubernatorial Elections Change Demand for Local Newspapers

How do partisans react when their candidate wins or loses a gubernatorial election? Previous work shows that when parties win presidential elections, demand for their affiliated local newspapers decreases relative to the losing party’s newspapers. However, it is unclear if this negative link extends beyond presidential races into state-level elections. To test this relationship, we analyze demand for partisan and non-partisan newspapers in Virginia and New Jersey—two states that hold off-cycle gubernatorial elections with no competition from federal elections—from 1933 to 2005. We find demand for local newspapers associated with the winning party declines after gubernatorial elections compared to demand for other newspapers. The results also shed light on whether (and which) winning partisans are disengaging completely or shifting their consumption to independent newspapers. Taken together, our study suggests that state-level elections significantly influence local newspaper consumption and adds valuable local context to our understanding of the political dynamics of news demand.

Election Manipulation on Social Networks: Seeding, Edge Removal, Edge Addition

We focus on the election manipulation problem through social influence, where a manipulator exploits a social network to make her most preferred candidate win an election. Influence is due to information in favor of and/or against one or multiple candidates, sent by seeds and spreading through the network according to the independent cascade model. We provide a comprehensive theoretical study of the election control problem, investigating two forms of manipulations: seeding to buy influencers given a social network and removing or adding edges in the social network given the set of the seeds and the information sent. In particular, we study a wide range of cases distinguishing in the number of candidates or the kind of information spread over the network.
 Our main result shows that the election manipulation problem is not affordable in the worst-case, even when one accepts to get an approximation of the optimal margin of victory, except for the case of seeding when the number of hard-to-manipulate voters is not too large, and the number of uncertain voters is not too small, where we say that a voter that does not vote for the manipulator's candidate is hard-to-manipulate if there is no way to make her vote for this candidate, and uncertain otherwise.
 We also provide some results showing the hardness of the problems in special cases. More precisely, in the case of seeding, we show that the manipulation is hard even if the graph is a line and that a large class of algorithms, including most of the approaches recently adopted for social-influence problems (e.g., greedy, degree centrality, PageRank, VoteRank), fails to compute a bounded approximation even on elementary networks, such as undirected graphs with every node having a degree at most two or directed trees. In the case of edge removal or addition, our hardness results also apply to election manipulation when the manipulator has an unlimited budget, being allowed to remove or add an arbitrary number of edges, and to the basic case of social influence maximization/minimization in the restricted case of finite budget.
 Interestingly, our hardness results for seeding and edge removal/addition still hold in a re-optimization variant, where the manipulator already knows an optimal solution to the problem and computes a new solution once a local modification occurs, e.g., the removal/addition of a single edge.

Comparing voting methods: 2016 US presidential election

This paper presents data from a survey leading up to the 2016 US presidential elections. Participants were asked their opinions about the candidates and were also asked to vote according to three alternative voting rules, in addition to plurality: approval voting, range voting, and instant runoff voting. The participants were split into two groups, one facing a set of four candidates (Clinton, Trump, Johnson, and Stein) and the other a set of nine candidates (the previous four plus Sanders, Cruz, McMullin, Bloomberg, and Castle). The paper studies three issues: (1) How do US voters use these alternative rules? (2) What kinds of candidates, in terms of individual preferences, are favored by which rule? (3) Which rules empirically satisfy the independence of eliminated alternatives? Our results provide evidence that, according to all standard criteria computed on individual preferences, be there utilitarian or of the Condorcet type, the same candidate (Sanders) wins. Evaluative voting rules such as approval voting and range voting might lead to this outcome, contrary to direct plurality and instant runoff voting (that elects Clinton) and to the official voting rule (that elected Trump).

Targeted Negative Campaigning: Complexity and Approximations

Given the ubiquity of negative campaigning in recent political elections, we find it important to study its properties from a computational perspective. To this end, we present a model where elections can be manipulated by convincing voters to demote specific non-favored candidates, and study its properties in the classic setting of scoring rules. When the goal is constructive (making a preferred candidate win), we prove that finding such a demotion strategy is easy for Plurality and Veto, while generally hard for t-approval and Borda. We also provide a t-factor approximation for t-approval for every fixed t, and a 3-factor approximation algorithm for Borda. Interestingly enough - following recent trends in political science that show that the effectiveness of negative campaigning depends on the type of candidate and demographic - when assigning varying prices to different possible demotion operations, we are able to provide inapproximability results. When the goal is destructive (making the leading opponent lose), we show that the problem is easy for a broad class of scoring rules.

Racial Resentment, Electoral Loss, and Satisfaction with Democracy Among Whites in the United States: 2004–2016

Satisfaction with democracy is a critical supporting element of any democratic process, though a robust literature demonstrates that such satisfaction is contingent on numerous personal preferences and situational contexts. Perhaps most disconcerting, satisfaction is highly correlated with electoral (mis)fortune—winner or loser status. We theorize that this connection is moderated by a fundamental group orientation in American politics: racial resentment. Satisfaction with democracy should increase among white electoral losers as racial resentment increases when Republican candidates win and decrease as racial resentment strengthens when Democratic candidates win. In both scenarios, the connection between electoral (mis)fortune and satisfaction are moderated by a perception of whether the political system under the incoming president will be (unfairly) working better for others—black Americans—who are perceived to be less deserving of benefits. We find support for this argument using ANES presidential election data from 2004–2016. These results are robust to examination of only validated votes, panel data support the causal direction our theory posits, and we find that racial resentment uniquely moderates this relationship compared to related potential moderators, like ideological self-identification and racial stereotypes. More than petulance in the face of loss, (dis)satisfaction with democracy is a product of group orientations.

Control complexity in Borda elections: Solving all open cases of offline control and some cases of online control

Borda Count is one of the earliest and most important voting rules and has been central to many applications in artificial intelligence. We study the problem of control in Borda elections where an election chair seeks to either make a designated candidate win (constructive case), or prevent her from winning (destructive case), via actions such as adding, deleting, or partitioning either candidates or voters. These scenarios have been studied for many voting rules and the related control problems have been classified in terms of their computational complexity. However, for one of the most prominent natural voting rules, the Borda Count, complexity results have been known for only half of these cases until recently. We settle the complexity for all missing cases, focusing on the unique-winner model. We also exhibit two of the very rare cases where the complexity of control problems differs depending on the winner model chosen: For destructive control by partition and by run-off partition of candidates when ties promote, Borda is resistant in the unique-winner model (i.e., these two control problems are NP-hard), yet is vulnerable in the nonunique-winner model (i.e., one can decide in polynomial time whether control is possible). Finally, we turn to the model of online control in sequential elections that was recently proposed by Hemaspaandra et al. [62,61]. We show that sequential Borda elections are vulnerable to constructive and destructive online control by adding or deleting candidates, whereas we obtain coNP-hardness results for all types of online voter control in sequential Borda elections.