Local Candidate Effects in Canadian Elections

Abstract

What impact do local candidates have on elections in single member district plurality electoral systems? We provide new evidence using data from a large election study carried out during the 2015 Canadian federal election. We improve on the measurement of local candidate effects by asking over 20,000 survey respondents to rate the candidates in their constituency directly. We present three estimates. We find that when all voters are considered together, local candidate evaluations are decisive for approximately 4 per cent of voters. Second, these evaluations are decisive for the outcome of 10 per cent of constituency contests. Third, when models are estimated for each constituency, we find significant evaluation effects for 14 per cent of candidates.

War Deaths Can Increase Support for Incumbents

“…In Model 3, we add in a series of demographic covariates observed at the census level. Election outcomes regularly covary with constituency-level characteristics (Carty and Eagles, 2005) and other local characteristics (Allen Stevens et al, 2019). While our first estimates suggest no effect and our second estimates suggest an effect with statistical uncertainty, our third set of results suggest that the experience of casualties in a constituency increased support for the government's candidate by 1.69 percentage points over their 2006 performance ( p = .03).…”

Expanding Constituency Support Through Shared Local Roots in U.S. House Primaries

“…Key and others have found support for the friends-and-neighbors voting effect at different levels of government (Johnston et al, 2016; Lewis-Beck & Rice, 1983; Tatalovich, 1975), though notably not in the U.S. Congress. These studies demonstrate that constituents recognize local candidates and value them electorally (Bowler et al, 1993; Jacobs & Munis, 2019; Johnson & Rosenblatt, 2006; Rice & Macht, 1987; Shugart et al, 2005; Stevens et al, 2018). Parties in the comparative context have also been shown to actively seek out candidates with local ties (Gallagher, 1980; Parker, 1982, 1986; Weeks, 2008).…”

Candidate Effects on Election Outcomes: Political Skill, Campaign Efficacy, and Intentions in a British General Election

“…Despite long‐standing academic and public interest in individual characteristics associated with political success (e.g., Jost & Sidanius, 2004; Mondak, 2010; Winter, 1998), very few studies have examined how psychological characteristics, self‐reported by candidates ahead of political campaigns, contribute to their subsequent electoral performance (Sheafer & Tzionit, 2006; Stevens et al, 2019). These “candidate effects” (i.e., also known as the “personal vote” or the part of a legislator's vote based on his or her individual characteristics or record: Cain, Ferejohn, & Fiorina, 2013; Shugat, Valdini, & Suominen, 2005), are difficult to investigate, because political candidates are a “hard to reach” population for researchers.…”

“…Extant research suggests that the performance of elected officials is influenced by multiple individual characteristics, including personality (Dietrich, Lasley, Mondak, Remmel, & Turner, 2012; Mondak & Halperin, 2008; Mondak, Hibbing, Canache, Seligson, & Anderson, 2010; Rubenzer, Faschingbauer, & Ones, 2000; Silvester, Wyatt, & Randall, 2014), motivation (Winter, 1987, 1998), intelligence (Simonton, 2006), and cognitive style (Tetlock, 1984). Campaign performance also has been associated with candidate characteristics including occupation (Stevens et al, 2019), gender (Cowley & Campbell, 2011), political experience (Krebs, 2001; Shugart et al, 2005; Tavits, 2010), appearance (Antonakis & Eubanks, 2017; Jacquart & Antonakis, 2015), personality (Nai, 2019; Nai & Maier, 2018), ideology and values (Joly, Hofmans, & Loewen, 2018; Schumacher & Zettler, 2019), and communication (Sheafer, 2008; Sheafer & Tzionit, 2006).…”