Determining Election Outcomes Research Articles

Cross-border political competition.

Individuals are increasingly exposed to news and opinion from beyond national borders. This news and opinion are often concentrated in clusters of ideological homophily, such as political parties, factions, or interest groups. But how does exposure to cross-border information affect the diffusion of ideas across national and ideological borders? Here, we develop a non-linear mathematical model for the cross-border spread of two ideologies. First, we describe the standard deterministic model where the populations of each country are assumed to be constant and homogeneously mixed. We solve the system of differential equations numerically by the Runge-Kutta method and show how small changes in the influence of a minority ideology can trigger shifts in the global political equilibrium. Second, we simulate recruitment as a stochastic differential process for each political affiliation and fit model solutions to population growth rates and voting populations in US presidential elections from 1932 to 2020. We also project the dynamics of several possible scenarios from 2020 to the end of the century. We show that cross-border influence plays a fundamental role in determining election outcomes. An increase in foreign support for a national party's ideas could change the election outcome, independent of domestic recruitment capacity. One key finding of our study suggests that voter turnout in the US will grow at a faster rate than non-voters in the coming decades. This trend is attributed to the enhanced recruitment capabilities of both major parties among non-partisans over time, making political disaffection less prominent. This phenomenon holds true across all simulated scenarios.

Solidarity in question: activation of dormant political dispositions and Latino support for Trump in 2020

Abstract Expectations about ethnic solidarity notwithstanding, Latino support for Donald Trump grew between the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections. Despite his anti-immigration positions and policies, the number of votes cast for Trump unexpectedly increased among members of the group most strongly associated with the issue of immigration. Latinos showed considerably more variance in voting behavior than what would be expected given accounts focused mainly on their ethnic solidarity. We propose a counterintuitive explanation for this trend: due to the activation of dormant political dispositions, it is the very anti-immigration attitudes characterizing Trump that account for his ascendence among Latino voters. Latinos voting for Trump did so because of his anti-immigration positions and not despite those positions. Our findings motivate a reevaluation of standard understandings of the role of minorities in American politics writ large and in American elections more specifically. Furthermore, as anti-immigration Latinos reside disproportionately more in certain swing states, we find them to be a pivotal political force in determining election outcomes, though in unexpected ways.

Trump’s African Americans? Racial resentment and Black support for Trump in the 2020 elections

ABSTRACT The juxtaposition of the 2016 and 2020 elections reveals that despite articulating prejudiced positions as a candidate and then as president, Donald Trump broadened his support among minorities. Particularly perplexing is the fact that support for Trump grew among African Americans. We propose a counterintuitive explanation: racial resentment among Blacks accounted for Trump’s increased support. Our highly robust results motivate a reevaluation of standard understandings of the role of race in American politics writ large and in American elections more specifically. Blacks show considerably more variance in voting behavior than what would be expected given accounts focused on their linked fate; Blacks behave not just in the mold of Stacey Abrams, but more than commonly thought also in the mold of Clarence Thomas. As racially resentful Blacks reside disproportionately in certain swing states, our account portrays Blacks as citizens with political agency, who may be pivotal in determining election outcomes, sometimes in unexpected ways.

Fiji's 2022 Election: The Defeat of the Politics of Fear

An election held under semi-authoritarian conditions in Fiji in December 2022 saw a narrow defeat for coup leader Frank Bainimarama's incumbent FijiFirst Party. This paper looks at the political parties, the campaign issues, and the results. It argues that fear of yet another coup, as occurred in 1987, 2000, and 2006, was a critical factor determining election outcomes in 2014 and 2018, but a credible rejection of that option by the Republic of Fiji Military Forces in 2022 and an opposition campaign that could no longer be depicted as ethno-nationalist paved the way for regime change in Fiji.

Macroeconomy and macropartisanship: Economic conditions and party identification

Abstract“It's the economy stupid”—is the phrase that captures the ubiquity of economics in determining election outcomes. Nevertheless, while several studies support the premise of economic voting, a constant critique of valence economic models is that partisan bias contaminates voters' economic perceptions, thus invaliding any independent effect of economic opinions on the vote. Here, we test whether partisanship may itself be endogenous to the macroeconomy. Aggregating data from the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES), supplemented with European Social Survey (ESS) data to bolster the time analysis, we focus on macropartisanship and find a drop‐off of party identifiers for governing parties in tandem with the economic downturn, specifically from rising unemployment. More generally, macropartisanship responds to economic conditions, suggesting that the endogeneity concern between party attachment and valence economic conditions is not unidirectional. That is, while economic perceptions may be influenced by party identification, party identification can be influenced by economic conditions.Related ArticlesDettrey, Bryan J. 2013. “Relative Losses and Economic Voting: Sociotropic Considerations or ‘Keeping up with the Joneses?’” Politics & Policy 41(5): 788–806. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12038.Fernandes, Ivan Filipe, Gustavo Andrey De Almeida Lopes Fernandes, and Artur Zimerman. 2022. “For Whom the Bell Tolls: Party Mediation Effects on Economic Voting in a Large Democratic Federation.” Politics & Policy 50(2): 324–62. https://doi.org/10.1111/polp.12453.Stegmaier, Mary, and Michael S. Lewis‐Beck. 2009. “Learning the Economic Vote: Hungarian Forecasts, 1998–2010.” Politics & Policy 37(4): 769–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747‐1346.2009.00197.x.

Who Punishes Extremist Nominees? Candidate Ideology and Turning Out the Base in US Elections

Political observers, campaign experts, and academics alike argue bitterly over whether it is more important for a party to capture ideologically moderate swing voters or to encourage turnout among hardcore partisans. The behavioral literature in American politics suggests that voters are not informed enough, and are too partisan, to be swing voters, while the institutional literature suggests that moderate candidates tend to perform better. We speak to this debate by examining the link between the ideology of congressional candidates and the turnout of their parties’ bases in US House races, 2006–2014. Combining a regression discontinuity design in close primary races with survey and administrative data on individual voter turnout, we find that extremist nominees—as measured by the mix of campaign contributions they receive—suffer electorally, largely because theydecreasetheir party’s share of turnout in the general election, skewing the electorate towards their opponent’s party. The results help show how the behavioral and institutional literatures can be connected. For our sample of elections, turnout appears to be the dominant force in determining election outcomes, but it advantages ideologically moderate candidates because extremists appear to activate the opposing party’s base more than their own.

Campaigning and election outcomes in a presidential primary election

ABSTRACTThis article presents new evidence from the US presidential primary setting on the role campaigning plays in determining election outcomes. Using candidate visits as a measure of campaign intensity, I estimate a discrete choice model of voting using a differentiated products framework where I allow for abstention and create instruments for campaigning based on Democratic Party rules for delegate allocation. On average, a visit by a candidate increases the vote share of this candidate by about 2.4 percentage points and decreases the abstaining share by 0.7 percentage points.

Modeling the effects of changing issue salience in two-party competition

For a given distribution of voter ideal points, candidates may compete, not only by changing their policy platforms, but also by seeking to persuade voters to place more weight on one of the given dimensions. We do not examine persuasion mechanisms, per se, but, rather, investigate how change of the salience weights can lead to alternation of majorities for the candidates, even though candidate positions remain fixed. Thus, competition over the salience of issue dimensions can, under certain circumstances, be crucial for determining election outcomes. We illustrate potential non-monotonicities in priming effects in terms of the Fourier series decomposition of the distribution of voter preferences, showing that the existence of higher-level harmonics leads to greater uncertainty about election outcomes and about best heresthetic strategies. We then demonstrate the empirical relevance of our results with data on two issue dimensions of political competition in the 2000 U.S. presidential election.

So, What Difference Do Leaders Make? Candidates’ Images and the “Conditionality” of Leader Effects on Voting

Do leaders make a difference? Are national political candidates and their public images influential in shaping voter choice and in determining election outcomes? Scholarly literature on “leader effects” tends to be discordant when assessing the impact of leader images on voting. This suggests that we should reframe the question in “conditional” terms, i.e. under what conditions do leaders make a difference? Indeed, we need to consider not only “how much”, but also “who” can make a difference along with “where”, “when”, “to whom”, and “how”. Having examined the findings of existing international research, this review article proposes an “epistemological tool kit” with which to examine the forms and limits of knowledge on the influence of leaders’ images on voting. In so doing, it considers the following “conditions of possibility” for leader effects: (1) structural constraints: the institutional, political, territorial and media contexts in which an election takes place; (2) political opportunities: the opinion climate, the economic situation, the presence of a systemic crisis, and the campaign environment; (3) individual moderators: the availability of leader‐oriented segments of voters; (4) image variables: the fundamental features of the candidates/leaders. Finally, the article examines the possible forms (types of effects and mediating processes) and impact (micro/macro assessment) of leader effects on voting.

From the editor: Systems studies of voting systems and elections

This collection of articles is presented to the reader in the framework of systems studies of elections as a class of service systems vital for democratic societies. Fundamentals of engineering systems, including those of systems servicing large customers such as electorates in local and national elections, are developed and studied at the Center for Engineering Systems Fundamentals, a part of the Engineering Systems Division at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Besides studies of elections as such, studies of national and international political institutions are important for understanding the effectiveness of government. These institutions constitute an inseparable component of democracies, and studies of such institutions should help voters better understand their choices in electing government representatives. Particularly, studying mechanisms for adopting decisions in the legislature and those for interacting between the legislative and executive branches of the government should help electorates evaluate which promises of candidates on the ballot in an election are no more than wishful thinking, creating baseless expectations in voters, and which can be really implemented within boundaries imposed by these mechanisms on the spectrum of possible government decisions and compromises. Understandinghowthenumberofseatsthatapoliticalpartyreceivesinthelegislatureofastatedependsonthenumbers of constituencies and on the share of votes received in an election by candidates representing political parties, as well as understanding to how many seats a state should be intitied in the legislature of a Union of states, is critical for political stability both in countries and in continents. Articles on modeling political institutions constitute a sizable part of those included in this volume. Regularities of the formation of political parties and voter political preferences are as an important factor for studying voter behavior as are features of voting rules. Articles reflecting quantitative studies of these regularities and features are presented in this volume. These studies establish and clarify connections between political and civic matters while emphasizing the difference between the two. Systems studies of elections as such are currently conducted in four major directions. First, studying properties of voting rules and the perception of their fairness by voters is instrumental in making decisions on improving existing rules for determining election outcomes, or replacing these rules with those better in any reasonable sense. Second, developing techniques aimed at providing accuracy in reflecting the will of voters via cast votes and protecting cast votes against manipulation is critical for assuring society that every vote is counted, and these techniques should underlie the design of voting machines and strategies of auditing cast votes. Third, the allocation of voting machines and personnel on Election day that guarantees equal access to polls for every voter and secures service time at the polls within reasonable standards is key to effectively administering elections and making voters confident that every vote counts. Fourth, the quality of methods for evaluating public opinion about the candidates on the ballot and their campaigns, as well as that of methods for forecasting election outcomes, are a critical factor in fairly communicating election information to the voters via the media, in detecting biases of particular media outlets, and in distinguishing facts from political propaganda.

An economic analysis of voting in Sweden

Using data from the Swedish Election Studies between 1985 and 1994 supplemented with time series on inflation and unemployment, I compare the impact of macro- and microeconomic variables on the individual vote. The principal finding is that macroeconomic variables influence the vote a bit more than microeconomic variables do. In consequence, both self-interest and public interest appear to be important explanations of economic voting in Sweden. Macroeconomic variables have, however, been much more influential in determining election outcomes. Since previous studies of economic voting have used cross-sectional data only, it is also worth noting that panel estimates indicate a much greater impact of macroeconomic variables on the individual vote than cross-sectional estimates do.

Educating citizens for changing economies

While economic factors play a crucial role in determining election outcomes, the place of economic understanding in educating citizens is neither widely recognized nor substantially articulated in the literature. Although economic educators have frequently asserted that economic understanding is important to citizens’ education, they have not set out their case by engaging with the wider literature on citizenship education. This paper identifies two dimensions of an economic education that enable it to contribute to a ‘maximalist’ citizenship education.

Did the Whistle-Stop Campaign Matter?

Although political campaigns have long been thought to have relatively minimal effects, recent literature suggests a more definitive role for campaigns in determining election outcomes. This articles contributes to this growing body of research by focusing on a campaign that is widely viewed (albeit in the absence of much empirical analysis) as having been decisive—the presidential campaign of 1948.

Macro Economic Determinants of Electoral Support for Incumbents in Turkey, 1950–1995

The assertion that economic conditions prevailing during a government's tenure influence the level of electoral support it receives is frequently expressed in Turkey. Despite frequent references to economic dimensions of electoral behavior in Turkish media and academic circles, however, there are only a few systematic analyses of the impact of macro-economic performance on incumbents' electoral success. Bulutay and Yıldırım (1969) and Bulutay (1970) were the first attempts in this direction. These pioneering empirical analyses were mainly descriptive and rely on cross-sectional observations across provinces for the elections between 1950 and 1969. Based solely on developments in the agricultural sector they concluded that economic factors were first among the factors determining election outcomes. Özselçuk (1975) included macro-economic indicators, such as changes in per capita income and prices, in a regression model to explain changes in incumbents' vote share. Özselçuk provided some evidence that incumbents' electoral support was shaped by developments in macro-economic indicators, however, his analyses were technically deficient and his results were poorly documented.

Campaigns, National Conditions, and U.S. Presidential Elections

One unresolved debate in election studies concerns the relative importance of political campaigns and the national political and economic climate in determining election outcomes. In this paper, a model of candidate support that incorporates campaign variables and national conditions is developed and tested using trial heat data from the 1984, 1988, and 1992 presidential elections. The results of the analysis indicate that, while both sets of variables have a significant impact on public opinion, national conditions have a greater impact on determining election outcomes than do campaign events.

The Effect of Company Campaigns on Certification Elections: Law and Reality Once Again

Recent studies have challenged the conclusion Getman, Goldberg, and Herman reached in their 1976 study that company campaigns have little if any effect on how workers vote in union certification elections. This study attempts to reconcile these conflicting results by re-analyzing data collected by Getman, Goldberg, and Herman for their study. The author estimates a probit model of voting that controls for several variables not considered in other studies. He finds that employer threats and actions taken against union supporters, some written communications, and captive-audience speeches all have statistically significant effects on voting. Election simulations based on the voting model also show that the effects of these employer tactics can be important in determining election outcomes.

Measuring Friends-and-Neighbors Voting

Although the friends-and-neighbors factor helps explain the results of Democratic primaries in several Southern states, an adequate measure of the phenomenon is conspicu ously missing. A procedure for measuring the hometown support, the concentration of that support, and the importance of friends-and-neighbors is developed herein. The 1947 special general election and the 1978 Democratic primaries for the Mississippi U.S. Senate seat are analyzed to show how the measure is better than a previous one, how the im portance of friends-and-neighbors in determining election outcomes can be calculated, and how one can detect if the importance is spurious. The analysis demonstrates that friends-and-neighbors was as important in the 1978 first primary as it was in the 1947 special general election. The high importance in the 1978 runoff is partially explained, however, by the emerging North-South cleavage in Mississippi politics.