Presidential Election Data Research Articles

Political perspectives and their impact on fintech mortgage lending adoption

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to explore the link between political perspectives and the adoption of financial technology (fintech) mortgage lending, a new type of mortgage lending facilitated by online platforms.Design/methodology/approachThe authors use fintech mortgage lending and presidential election data for the United States of America (USA) counties from 2010 to 2017. Employing several analysis techniques including ordinary least squares (OLS) regressions and propensity score matching (PSM) methodology, the authors test whether political views are related to fintech mortgage lending, after controlling for other county characteristics including population, unemployment rate, median income, median age, minority ratio and education.FindingsThe authors find that a higher tendency toward Republican views is positively associated with adoption rates of fintech mortgages. The empirical results are supported by Republican ideology, which advocates for deregulation and market-driven solutions, as well as an increasing skepticism among Republicans toward traditional banking and financial institutions.Originality/valueThis paper contributes to the growing body of literature on fintech credit. By focusing on political views to explain the adoption of fintech mortgage lending – a recent and potentially disruptive innovation – the authors provide new insights into the dynamics within fintech credit markets.

ELECTORAL MALDISTRICTING

AbstractWe introduce a framework to theoretically and empirically examine electoral maldistricting—the intentional drawing of electoral districts to advance partisan objectives, compromising voter welfare. We identify the legislatures that maximize voter welfare and those that maximize partisan goals, and incorporate them into a maldistricting index. This index measures the intent to maldistrict by comparing distances from the actual legislature to the nearest partisan and welfare‐maximizing legislatures. Using 2008 presidential election data and 2010 census‐based district maps, we find a Republican‐leaning bias in district maps. Our index tracks court rulings in intuitive ways.

Explaining socioeconomic disparities in electoral participation: The role of health in the SES-voting relationship

The substantial gap in electoral participation between upper and lower socioeconomic status (SES) groups has long been a vexing problem for modern democracies and one that demands explanation. Following separate bodies of scholarship that suggest (1) socioeconomic disadvantage diminishes health and (2) poor health demobilizes eligible voters, this paper proposes that health serves as a pathway through which social inequality manifests in disparities in electoral participation. This paper tests this hypothesis by analyzing U.S. presidential election data, in which structural equation modeling was used to decompose the association between SES and turnout, through health. Results show that health mediates approximately 20% of the relationship between SES and electoral participation. These findings imply a political explanation for the endurance of population health disparities; they may self-sustain by disproportionately limiting the political voice of the disadvantaged, for whom more egalitarian social and health policy would be most beneficial.

Benford’s Law and County-Level Votes in US Presidential Elections

In the aftermath of the 2020 US Presidential election, the argument was raised that because Joseph Biden's county vote totals in Pennsylvania do not follow Benford's law but Donald Trump's do, Democratic voter fraud occurred in Pennsylvania. We use US recent presidential election data to investigate whether this argument holds water. We use statistical tools such as chi squared goodness-of-fit tests and hypothesis tests for proportions, which are commonly used in Benford settings.

Voter Turnout and Preference Aggregation

We study how voter turnout affects the aggregation of preferences in elections. Under voluntary voting, election outcomes disproportionately aggregate the preferences of voters with low voting cost and high preference intensity. We show identification of the correlation structure among preferences, costs, and perceptions of voting efficacy, and explore how the correlation affects preference aggregation. Using 2004 US presidential election data, we find that young, low-income, less-educated, and minority voters are underrepresented. All of these groups tend to prefer Democrats, except for the less educated. Democrats would have won the majority of the electoral votes if all eligible voters had turned out. (JEL D12, D72)

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.

Structural changes in sentiment and returns: evidence from the Trump election

ABSTRACT Given that regime changes may induce new tendencies and behaviours of financial models, we analyse the impact of sentiment variables on stock market returns for time periods before and after Donald Trump’s election. Using the CAPM and Fama–French three-factor model augmented with sentiment measures, we find evidence of a structural break in the 2016 presidential election data. Our results suggest that the relationship between sentiment and abnormal returns is more negative for the periods following the election, and that researchers modelling sentiment and returns should account for structural breaks.

Generalized Linear Distributed Lag Models

We propose distributed generalized linear models for the purpose of incorporating lagged effects. The model class provides a more accurate statistical measure of the relationship between the dependent variable and a series of covariates. The estimators from the proposed procedure are shown to be consistent. Simulation studies not only confirm the asymptotic properties of the estimators, but exhibit the adverse effects of model misspecification in terms of accuracy of model estimation and prediction. The application is illustrated by analyzing the presidential election data of 2016.

Application of digits based test to analyse presidential election data in Nigeria

ABSTRACT This study examined the application of Benford's Law to analyse the 2015 and 2019 presidential election data in Nigeria. Data obtained from the electoral body were analysed using frequency distribution and Spearman Rank Correlation tests at 0.05 level of significance. Findings revealed that the second digits distributions of the vote counts for the two major political parties, registered voters and total vote counts in both elections do not conform to the distributional pattern predicted by Benford's Law. The study recommends that stakeholders should aim for an electoral reform that allows the use of forensic analysis of electoral data in Nigeria.

Can We Forecast Presidential Election Using Twitter Data? An Integrative Modelling Approach

ABSTRACT Forecasting political elections has attracted a lot of attention. Traditional election forecasting models in political science generally take preference in poll surveys and economic growth at the national level as the predictive factors. However, spatially or temporally dense polling has always been expensive. In the recent decades, the exponential growth of social media has drawn enormous research interests from various disciplines. Existing studies suggest that social media data have the potential to reflect the political landscape. Particularly, Twitter data have been extensively used for sentiment analysis to predict election outcomes around the world. However, previous studies have typically been data-driven and the reasoning process was oversimplified without robust theoretical foundations. Most of the studies correlate twitter sentiment directly and solely with the election results which can hardly be regarded as predictions. To develop a more theoretically plausible approach this study draws on political science prediction models and modifies them in two aspects. First, our approach uses Twitter sentiment to replace polling data. Second, we transform traditional political science models from the national level to the county level, the finest spatial level of voting counts. The proposed model has independent variables of support rate based on Twitter sentiment and variables related to economic growth. The dependent variable is the actual voting result. The 2016 U.S. presidential election data in Georgia is used to train the model. Results show that the proposed modely is effective with the accuracy of 81% and the support rate based on Twitter sentiment ranks the second most important feature.

Not swinging together: Partisan defection in the age of political polarization

ABSTRACTTraditional studies of swing voters in American politics typically focus on general attributes of a monolithic group. More recent analyses of “partisan defection,” address the partisan direction of swing voting but often limit analysis to a single election or a single direction of defection. I seek to expand upon this research by examining multidirectional partisan defection across successive presidential elections. Using ANES and CCES 2012 and 2016 presidential election data, I test individual correlates of self-reported major party vote switching for presidential-candidates in both directions. Results suggest one the strongest correlates of defection has been underappreciated in recent defection studies: self-identified ideology. More conservative past Democratic voters and more liberal past Republican voters are more likely to defect than voters whose ideology is more consistent with their past voting patterns. The two groups of defectors are also vastly different from one another with Whites more likely to defect to Republicans and African Americans more likely to defect to Democrats. Less progressive racial attitudes and financial hardship are also both associated with increased odds of defecting from Democrats but decreased odds of defecting from Republicans. Finally, results show intra-defector group similarity across both elections, suggesting consistent partisan defection trends, irrespective of candidates. Overall, these results call for a reexamination of voter defection to consider distinct partisan directionality, secular trends in defection, and further exploration of the role of self-identified ideology.

Thematic Mapping: This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours

Thematic Mapping: This Is My Truth Tell Me Yours

An Analysis on Voters’ Awareness on Fake News related to Elections - Focused on the 19th Presidential ElectionData -

An Analysis on Voters’ Awareness on Fake News related to Elections - Focused on the 19th Presidential ElectionData -

Semiparametric Estimator for Binary‐outcome Sample Selection: Prejudice Matters in Election

Abstracta semiparametric estimator for binary‐outcome sample‐selection models is proposed that imposes only single index assumptions on the selection and outcome equations without specifying the error term distribution. I adopt the idea in Lewbel (2000) using a ‘special regressor’ to transform the binary response Y so that the transformed Y becomes linear in the latent index, which then makes it possible to remove the selection correction term by differencing the transformed Y equation. There are various versions of the estimator, which perform differently trading off bias and variance. A simulation study is conducted, and then I apply the estimators to US presidential election data in 2008 and 2012 to assess the impact of racial prejudice on the elections, as a black candidate was involved for the first time ever in the US history.

Policy Salience and Election Outcomes in Contemporary American Presidential Elections (1972‐2000)

This article examines the influence of policy salience on election outcomes using aggregate U.S. presidential election data and the American National Election Studies poll data from 1972 to 2000. It finds that salience influences election outcomes consistent with the Schattschneider‐Lowi thesis that policy determines politics. While salience levels are typically low, relatively higher salience yields more popular votes for Republicans than Democrats. Consequently, Republicans typically win by higher margins and lose by smaller margins compared to Democrats. Moreover, an incumbent is likely to be reelected if his party's salience levels remain higher than the challenger's. Finally, the policy salience thesis provides useful clues in the quest for a unified voting theory. It suggests that voters rely on rationality and self‐interest to obtain answers to two pertinent questions, whose answers determine how they vote: (1) what is the most important problem; and (2) who can address it? These questions also undergird other voting theories.Related Articles Bernick, M. Ethan, and Nathan Myers. 2012. “.” Politics & Policy 40 (): 131‐159. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2011.00340.x/abstract Heidbreder, Bianne. 2012. “.” Politics & Policy 40 (): 296‐319. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1747-1346.2012.00345.x/abstract Khodr, Hiba, and Isabella Ruble. 2013. “.” Politics & Policy 41 (): 656‐689. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/polp.12033/pdf

Manufacturing and the 2016 Election: An Analysis of US Presidential Election Data

Much of the public discourse and media analysis of the surprise outcome of the 2016 US presidential election has emphasized the role of manufacturing workers. This paper examines the importance of manufacturing jobs and job loss as determinants of voting patterns using county-level voting data from recent presidential elections. The share of employment in the manufacturing sector and long-run manufacturing job loss at the county level are not statistically significant in explaining the change in Republican vote shares from 2012 to 2016, when controlling for standard voting determinants. However, the change in the Republican vote share is positively correlated with manufacturing in predominantly white counties and negatively correlated with manufacturing in ethnically diverse counties, with these effects roughly offsetting each other. The paper further shows that this polarization between white and nonwhite manufacturing counties is more closely associated with polarizing candidates than a polarized electorate.

Voting contagion: Modeling and analysis of a century of U.S. presidential elections.

Social influence plays an important role in human behavior and decisions. Sources of influence can be divided as external, which are independent of social context, or as originating from peers, such as family and friends. An important question is how to disentangle the social contagion by peers from external influences. While a variety of experimental and observational studies provided insight into this problem, identifying the extent of contagion based on large-scale observational data with an unknown network structure remains largely unexplored. By bridging the gap between the large-scale complex systems perspective of collective human dynamics and the detailed approach of social sciences, we present a parsimonious model of social influence, and apply it to a central topic in political science—elections and voting behavior. We provide an analytical expression of the county vote-share distribution, which is in excellent agreement with almost a century of observed U.S. presidential election data. Analyzing the social influence topography over this period reveals an abrupt phase transition from low to high levels of social contagion, and robust differences among regions. These results suggest that social contagion effects are becoming more instrumental in shaping large-scale collective political behavior, with implications on democratic electoral processes and policies.

EL COSTO DE COORDINAR: NÚMERO DE CANDIDATOS PRESIDENCIALES EN AMÉRICA LATINA 1993-2010

The number of candidates competing in elections may have significant political consequences. In Latin America, presidential contests in many countries yield a large number of candidates, which contradicts theoretical expectations based on the fact that this is effectively a single-member competition. I provide an explanation based on coordination cost incurred by candidatess in unstable and low-programmatic electoral markets. Given this cost, we should expect entry decisions to exceed the theoretical upper limit. At the empirical level, the explanation is tested using statistical models of presidential election data in 18 Latin American countries between 1993 and 2010. I find evidence in support of the hypothesis that unstable and low-programmatic electoral markets are associated with a larger than expected number of presidential candidates.

The Political Segregation of the United States

The federal bicameral legislature of the United States of America (U.S.) is currently dysfunctional, in that it is unable to pass legislation to address important issues such as immigration reform and economic development. I show that dysfunctional government in the U.S. is largely a byproduct of segregation: a phenomenon in which liberals tend to relocate to live in areas where liberal voters are in the majority, and conservatives tend to relocate to live in areas where conservative voters are in the majority. I analyze U.S. presidential election data by state from 1976-2012, and show that a shift occurred in voting behavior for key American states after 1976. I explore some of the reasons for these political trends and I review and discuss the psychological literature related to voting behavior.

The Political Segregation of the United States

The federal bicameral legislature (House of Representatives and Senate; Congress) of the United States of America (U.S.; America) is currently dysfunctional, in that it is unable to pass legislation to address important issues such as immigration reform, student loan relief, minimum wage, budget reform, and economic development. This dysfunction is usually attributed to the intransigence of America’s two ruling political parties, the liberal-leaning Democratic Party and the conservative-leaning Republican Party. This intransigence has led to a situation in which most legislators refuse to compromise with legislators from other political parties.I show that dysfunctional government in the U.S. is largely a byproduct of “political segregation’: a phenomenon in which liberals tend to relocate to live in areas where liberal voters are in the majority, and conservatives tend to relocate to live in areas where conservative voters are in the majority. I analyze U.S. presidential election data by state from 1824-2012, and show that a shift occurred in voting behavior for key American states. I believe that this political shift began to occur after 1976, and I explore some of the reasons for these political trends. I review and discuss the psychological literature related to voting behavior.I hypothesize that individual U.S. federal legislators are following the wishes of the vast majority of voters in their districts, and that dysfunctional government is a byproduct of political segregation, and is not simply a function of the intransigence of individual legislators.Finally, I discuss my results and offer some suggestions for reducing political dysfunction in the United States.