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Coordinating Voting in American Presidential and House Elections Mebane, Walter R. Uploaded 07-21-1997 Keywords coordinating voting moderating voting probabilistic voting spatial voting retrospective voting presidential elections congressional elections split-ticket voting pivotal voter theorem beta distribution multinomial logit maximum likelihood Abstract I describe and estimate a probabilistic voting model designed to test whether individuals' votes for President and for the House of Representatives are coordinated with respect to two cutpoints on a single spatial dimension, in the way that Alesina and Rosenthal's pivotal voter theorem suggests they should be. In my model the cutpoints are random variables about which each individual has a subjective probability distribution. Each person's probabilistic coordinating voting behavior occurs relative to the cutpoints' expected values under the distribution. The model implements the idea the pattern of coordination depends on an individual's evaluation of the economy. The economic bias in the coordinating pattern implies that voters punish a Democratic President for success in improving the economy. The economically successful Democratic President can avoid losses only if the voters who rate the economy as having improved also believe that the policy position of the Democratic party has shifted to the right.

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Economic Voting: Enlightened Self-Interest and Economic Reference Groups Nagler, Jonathan Willette, Jennifer R. Jackman, Simon Uploaded 04-09-1997 Keywords elections economy presidential elections economic voting Abstract One of the more robust findings over the last 50 years in research on\r\nelections has been the importance of macroeconomic conditions on\r\nvoting in U.S. presidential elections. An important finding in that\r\nresearch was made by Steven Weatherford in a 1978 article\r\ndemonstrating that working class voters are more sensitive to economic\r\nconditions than are middle class voters in their vote choice.\r\nWeatherford's result was based on the 1956 through 1960 elections. We\r\nextend Weatherford's analysis for the 1956 thru 1992 elections. We are\r\nunable to produce evidence that poor voters are consistently more\r\nsensitive to the economy than are middle class and rich voters in\r\ntheir electoral behavior. We also offer a new theory of economic\r\nvoting. We propose that voters vote based on the economic performance\r\nof their economic reference group - rather than on their own personal\r\nfinances or on the state of the national economy. We offer a very\r\npreliminary and very crude initial test of this theory using NES data\r\nfor 1956 to 1992.

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Estimating the Probability of Events That have Never Occurred: When Does Your Vote Matter? Gelman, Andrew King, Gary Boscardin, John Uploaded 02-14-1997 Keywords conditional probability decision analysis elections electoral campaigning forecasting political science presidential elections rare events rational choice subjective probability voting power Abstract Researchers sometimes argue that statisticians have little to contribute when few realizations of the process being estimated are observed. We show that this argument is incorrect even in the extreme situation of estimating the probabilities of events so rare that they have never occurred. We show how statistical forecasting models allow us to use empirical data to improve inferences about the probabilities of these events. Our application is estimating the probability that your vote will be decisive in a U.S. presidential election, a problem that has been studied by researchers in political science for more than two decades. The exact value of this probability is of only minor interest, but the number has important implications for understanding the optimal allocation of campaign resources, whether states and voter groups receive their fair share of attention from prospective presidents, and how formal ``rational choice'' models of voter behavior might be able to explain why people vote at all. We show how the probability of a decisive vote can be estimated empirically from state-level forecasts of the presidential election and illustrate with the example of 1992. Based on generalizations of standard political science forecasting models, we estimate the (prospective) probability of a single vote being decisive as about 1 in 10 million for close national elections such as 1992, varying by about a factor of 10 among states. Our results support the argument that subjective probabilities of many types are best obtained via empirically-based statistical prediction models rather than solely mathematical reasoning. We discuss the implications of our findings for the types of decision analyses that are used in public choice studies.

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Rich state, poor state, red state, blue state:What's the matter with Connecticut? Gelman, Andrew Shor, Boris Bafumi, Joseph Park, David Uploaded 11-29-2005 Keywords availability heuristic ecological fallacy hierarchical model income and voting multilevel model presidential elections public opinion secret weapon varying-slope model Abstract We find that income matters more in ``red America'' than in ``blue America.'' In poor states, rich people are much more likely than poor people to vote for the Republican presidential candidate, but in rich states (such as Connecticut), income has a very low correlation with vote preference. In addition to finding this pattern and studying its changes over time, we use the concepts of typicality and availability from cognitive psychology to explain how these patterns can be commonly misunderstood. Our results can be viewed either as a debunking of the journalistic image of rich ``latte'' Democrats and poor ``Nascar'' Republicans, or as support for the journalistic images of political and cultural differences between red and blue states---differences which are not explained by differences in individuals' incomes. For decades, the Democrats have been viewed as the party of the poor, with the Republicans representing the rich. Recent presidential elections, however, have shown a reverse pattern, with Democrats performing well in the richer ``blue'' states in the northeast and west coast, and Republicans dominating in the ``red'' states in the middle of the country. Through multilevel modeling of individual-level survey data and county- and state-level demographic and electoral data, we reconcile these patterns. Key methods used in this research are: (1) plots of repeated cross-sectional analyses, (2) varying-intercept, varying-slope multilevel models, and (3) a graph that simultaneously shows within-group and between-group patterns in a multilevel model. These statistical tools help us understand patterns of variation within and between states in a way that would not be possible from classical regressions or by looking at tables of coefficient estimates.

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The Timing of Voting Decisions in Presidential Campaigns Box-Steffensmeier, Janet M. Kimball, David Uploaded 04-12-1999 Keywords heteroskedastic probit time of vote decision voting presidential elections 1988 election Abstract Voting analysts often make a distinction between "long-term" and "short-term" forces that influence the voting decision in presidential elections (Campbell et al. 1960). Long-term forces reflect information and considerations that are available to voter before the presidential campaign starts, such as party identification, demographic attributes, and the record each candidate has established previously in government. In contrast, short-term forces refer more specifically to the campaign. We posit that there is variation in the way voters integrate the long- and short-term forces into a voting decision. Furthermore, the long-term forces are smaller in number and thus easier for researchers to identify and measure. For example, much attention has been devoted to conceptualization and measurement of party identification. However, short-term forces are nearly infinite in number and are much harder to measure and link up to the voting decision. This means that voting models should perform well when predicting the choices of voters who are guided primarily by long-term forces. In contrast, voting models should not perform as well for citizens who are strongly influenced by short-term forces. In statistical terms, there will be heteroskedastic error variance in common vote models due to the differing influence of short- and long-term forces. We examine the variation among voters by using the standard NES question that asks citizens how long before the election they made their voting decisions and test our expectations using the heteroskedastic probit technique (Brehm and Alvarez 1995), which is like a standard probit model except that there is a separate equation to model the error variance (the errors in prediction). By using the timing of the vote decision to help model the error variance, we produce unbiased estimates and improve our ability to explain voting behavior and the impact of campaigns.

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Uncertainty and Candidate Personality Traits Alvarez, R. Michael Glasgow, Garrett Uploaded 04-16-1998 Keywords uncertainty direct measures of uncertainty survey response ordered probit candidate evaluation candidate traits presidential elections Abstract Recently, some scholars have focused attention on the role of uncertainty in elections (Alvarez 1997, Bartels 1986, Franklin 1991). They reveal that there is a great deal of uncertainty about the issue positions of candidates, and thus the costs of issue voting are burdensome for the average citizen. Further, this uncertainty affects how voters evaluate candidates in two ways. First, voters are less likely to evaluate a candidate in terms of an issue when they are uncertain about the candidate's position on that issue. Second, uncertainty about candidate issue positions has a negative impact on voter evaluations of a candidate. However, it is important to realize that for most individuals, information about the personality traits of candidates comes from the same sources as information about the issue positions of the candidates, generally media outlets. This means that information about the the personalities of candidates is passed through the same noisy channels as information about their issue positions, and is thus subject to the same types of distortions and biases that contribute to the cost of issue information. Although it is likely easier to interpret than issue information, trait information is still subject to uncertainty. In this paper we introduce direct survey measures of candidate personality trait uncertainty. Using survey data drawn from the 1995 and 1996 National Election Studies, we first establish that the direct measure of uncertainty used in this paper is a valid measure. We then examine the effect of trait opinions on candidate evaluations and test the effects that uncertainty about those opinions has on the use of traits in candidate evaluation.

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Rational Expectations Coordinating Voting in American Presidential and House Elections Mebane, Walter R. Uploaded 07-08-1998 Keywords coordinating voting probabilistic voting spatial voting retrospective voting policy moderation presidential elections congressional elections ticket splitting rational expectations voter equilibrium Bayesian-Nash equilibrium generalized extreme value model nonparametric Monte Carlo integration maximum likelihood Abstract I define a probabilistic model of individuals' presidential-year vote choices for President and for the House of Representatives in which there is a coordinating (Bayesian Nash) equilibrium among voters based on rational expectations each voter has about the election outcomes. I estimate the model using data from the six American National Election Study Pre-/Post-Election Surveys of years 1976--1996. The coordinating model passes a variety of tests, including a test against a majoritarian model in which there is rational ticket splitting but no coordination. The results give strong individual-level support to Alesina and Rosenthal's theory that voters balance institutions in order to moderate policy. The estimates describe vote choices that strongly emphasize the presidential candidates. I also find that a voter who says economic conditions have improved puts more weight on a discrepancy between the voter's ideal point and government policy with a Democratic President than on a discrepancy of the same size with a Republican President.

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Explaining the Gender Gap in U.S. Presidential Elections, 1980-1992 Chaney, Carole Alvarez, R. Michael Nagler, Jonathan Uploaded 08-22-1996 Keywords presidential elections gender gap issue voting economic evaluations general-extreme value model Abstract This paper compares the voting behavior of women and men in presidential elections since 1980 to test competing explanations for the gender gap. We show that, consistent with prior research on individual elections, women placed more emphasis on the national economy than men, and men placed more emphasis on pocketbook voting than women. We add evidence showing that women have consistently more negative assessments of the economy than do men, suggesting that a part of what has been considered a Republican-Democratic gender gap is really an anti-incumbent bias on the part of women. Our multivariate analysis demonstrates that neither the differences between men and women's preferences nor emphasis on any single issue explains the significant gender gap in vote choice; but that a combination of respondent views on the economy, social programs, military action, abortion, and ideology can consistently explain at least three-fourths of the gender gap in the 1984, 1988, and 1992 elections. We also clarify the interpretation of partisan identification in explaining the gender gap.

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Estimating the Probability of Events That have Never Occurred: When Does Your Vote Matter? Gelman, Andrew King, Gary Boscardin, John Uploaded 10-27-1997 Keywords conditional probability decision analysis elections electoral campaigning forecasting political science presidential elections rare events rational choice subjective probability voting power Abstract Researchers sometimes argue that statisticians have little to contribute when few realizations of the process being estimated are observed. We show that this argument is incorrect even in the extreme situation of estimating the probabilities of events so rare that they have never occurred. We show how statistical forecasting models allow us to use empirical data to improve inferences about the probabilities of these events. Our application is estimating the probability that your vote will be decisive in a U.S. presidential election, a problem that has been studied by political scientists for more than two decades. The exact value of this probability is of only minor interest, but the number has important implications for understanding the optimal allocation of campaign resources, whether states and voter groups receive their fair share of attention from prospective presidents, and how formal ``rational choice'' models of voter behavior might be able to explain why people vote at all. We show how the probability of a decisive vote can be estimated empirically from state-level forecasts of the presidential election and illustrate with the example of 1992. Based on generalizations of standard political science forecasting models, we estimate the (prospective) probability of a single vote being decisive as about 1 in 10 million for close national elections such as 1992, varying by about a factor of 10 among states. Our results support the argument that subjective probabilities of many types are best obtained via empirically-based statistical prediction models rather than solely mathematical reasoning. We discuss the implications of our findings for the types of decision analyses that are used in public choice studies.