Retrospective Voting

1
Retrospective Voting

• Last time Voting correctly
• Today Retrospective voting, or Do Campaigns
  Matter?

2
Voting correctly

• How often do voters make the right choice
  vis-à-vis their own self interest?
• conventional argument well-informed voters can
  get it right relatively uninformed voters cast
  random or habitual votes (unrelated to
  objective conditions
• Lau and Redlawsk estimate 75 pct of votes in
  prez elections are correct
• experiment involves post-treatment exit interview
  in which full information is revealed to the
  participant few change their minds
• Why?

3
Proximity voting?

• spatial theory of elections Vote for the closest
  candidate in the conceptual space
• if the space is one-dimensional and both
  candidates are perceived to the left (right) of
  the voter, choice is pretty easy if most voters
  lie in between the candidates, then choice is
  cognitively harder
• candidate goal is to maximize share of vote
  usual conclusion is centripetal incentives
  vis-à-vis the distribution of voter preferences
  hence most voters will be to one side or the
  other of both candidates few voters will learn
  enough to switch votes
• mobilization models of election
• both turnout and vote choice are in question for
  voters
• preference intensity matters
• campaigns are about activating voters
  preferences, not about changing minds

4
Issue voting?

• voters lack complete information about
  candidates attributes. How do they choose?
• issues candidates can differentiate on issue
  platforms. Do voters perceive differences in
  message? Do they care?
• party ID voters self-identified party ID
  strongly predicts self-reported vote choice. What
  is party ID?
• campaigns can candidates manipulate their
  images?

5
Retrospective voting

• Candidates face a credibility problem
• collective principal or multiple principals?
• election to fixed term
• hard to contract with voters to follow through on
  promises
• voters have incentive to forecast future behavior
  based on past record
• what past behavior do voters know, recall, factor
  in?
• Voters have incentives to ignore/discount
  campaign rhetoric

6
More retrospection

• Kiewiet and Rivers the thesis of the
  retrospective voting literature is that vote
  choice is driven by evaluations of outcomes and
  leads to pro/con assessments of incumbents.
• what outcomes matter?
• what dynamics relate past outcomes to present
  choices?
• who or what is the incumbent?
• Implication campaigns and candidates may be
  second-order considerations at best in vote
  choices