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Primaries with strategic voters: trading off electability and ideology

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  • Mohammad Mirhosseini

Abstract

This paper presents a spatial model of primary election to analyze strategic voting and its effect on the policy outcome. Primary voters care for the electability of the candidates as well as their offered policies. The trade off between these two factors might make the preferences of the primary voters non-single-peaked. I show the median voter is still decisive when the preferences are quadratic. Moreover, I use comparative statics and numerical analysis to evaluate the conditions under which the position of the Condorcet winner in the primary election shifts toward the center. Among the conditions that contribute to such a shift are radical policies by the incumbent, public opinion shift toward the incumbent party, and accurate information about the population median. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2015

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  • Mohammad Mirhosseini, 2015. "Primaries with strategic voters: trading off electability and ideology," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 44(3), pages 457-471, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:sochwe:v:44:y:2015:i:3:p:457-471
    DOI: 10.1007/s00355-014-0845-4
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    1. Edward L. Glaeser & Giacomo A. M. Ponzetto & Jesse M. Shapiro, 2005. "Strategic Extremism: Why Republicans and Democrats Divide on Religious Values," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(4), pages 1283-1330.
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