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Trump, Condorcet and Borda: Voting paradoxes in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries

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  • Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter

Abstract

The organization of US presidential elections make them potentially vulnerable to so-called “voting paradoxes”, identified by social choice theorists but rarely documented empirically. The presence of a record high number of candidates in the 2016 Republican Party presidential primaries may have made this possibility particularly latent. Using polling data from the primaries we identify two possible cases: Early in the pre-primary (2015) a cyclical majority may have existed in Republican voters’ preferences between Bush, Cruz and Walker—thereby giving a rare example of the Condorcet Paradox. Furthermore, later polling data (March 2016) suggests that while Trump (who achieved less than 50% of the total Republican primary vote) was the Plurality Winner, he could have been beaten in pairwise contests by at least one other candidate—thereby exhibiting a case of the Borda Paradox. The cases confirm the empirical relevance of the theoretical voting paradoxes and the importance of voting procedures.

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  • Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter, 2016. "Trump, Condorcet and Borda: Voting paradoxes in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries," MPRA Paper 75598, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:75598
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    Cited by:

    1. Niklas Potrafke, 2018. "Government ideology and economic policy-making in the United States—a survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 145-207, January.
    2. Wesley H. Holliday & Eric Pacuit, 2020. "Axioms for Defeat in Democratic Elections," Papers 2008.08451, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    3. Darmann, Andreas & Grundner, Julia & Klamler, Christian, 2019. "Evaluative voting or classical voting rules: Does it make a difference? Empirical evidence for consensus among voting rules," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 345-353.
    4. Mehdi Feizi & Rasoul Ramezanian & Saeed Malek Sadati, 2020. "Borda paradox in the 2017 Iranian presidential election: empirical evidence from opinion polls," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 101-113, June.
    5. Wesley H. Holliday & Eric Pacuit, 2021. "Axioms for defeat in democratic elections," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 33(4), pages 475-524, October.
    6. Wesley H. Holliday & Eric Pacuit, 2023. "Split Cycle: a new Condorcet-consistent voting method independent of clones and immune to spoilers," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 197(1), pages 1-62, October.
    7. Igersheim, Herrade & Durand, François & Hamlin, Aaron & Laslier, Jean-François, 2022. "Comparing voting methods: 2016 US presidential election," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    8. Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter & Duminski, Emily & Horndrup, Søren Nikolai, 2023. "Demokratiets vilkårlighed: En analyse af forekomsten af valgparadokser ved tre folketingsvalg [The arbitrariness of democracy: An analysis of the occurrence of voting paradoxes in three Danish parl," MPRA Paper 118922, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    9. Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter, 2019. "Var det fortsat ”the economy, stupid!” i 2016 og 2018? [Was it still "the economy, stupid!" in 2016 and 2018?]," MPRA Paper 97297, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Salvatore Barbaro & Anna-Sophie Kurella & Maike Roth, 2024. "Electoral outcomes versus voters’ preferences: On the different tales the data can tell," Working Papers 2412, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Social choice; Condorcet Paradox; Borda Paradox; US presidential election 2016; Jeb Bush; Chris Christie; Ted Cruz; John Kasich; Marco Rubio; Donald Trump; Scot Walker; voting system.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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