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Rationality and Information in Strategic Voting

Tomlinson, Andrew R

Abstract Details

2001, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, Political Science.

In recent years, third parties and independent candidacies have become an important part of the American political system. Yet few of these parties or candidates have been able to win office. Strategic voting by supporters of third party and independent candidates often siphons off potential votes for those candidates, and leads to their loss. Much of the work that has been done on strategic voting leaves out some crucial elements of the voting process.

In this dissertation I fill some of the gaps in the extant literature. Using data from the 1998 Gubernatorial election in Minnesota and the 1994 U.S. Senate election in Virginia, I show how the amount of strategic voting was drastically different in the two elections. I then use the Virginia data to model the vote choice of supporters of the third-place candidate with the correct, theoretically-based model. Next, I content analyze newspaper coverage of the two elections, in order to examine the role of the media in shaping the decision to vote strategically or sincerely. I find that there was more coverage of candidate negativity and more coverage of the horserace aspect of the campaign in Virginia than in Minnesota. That type of information in the political environment would be likely to activate strategic concerns in the electorate. There was more issue-based coverage in Minnesota, which might encourage more sincere voting.

Finally, I demonstrated that strategic factors dominated more traditional vote determinants among Coleman supporters in the Virginia election. Coleman's supporters were not particularly distinct from supporters of Robb or North, except that Independents, moderates, and those who did not follow the campaign were more likely to support Coleman than to support Robb or North. When the sample was restricted to Coleman supporters, the only new variable that significantly predicted strategic voting was opinion on abortion, where pro-choice voters were more likely to vote strategically than pro-life voters. These results suggest that analyses of multi-candidate elections that do not address strategic voting are missing some key factors that impact the decisions of third-party supporters.

Herbert Weisberg (Advisor)
174 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Tomlinson, A. R. (2001). Rationality and Information in Strategic Voting [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1001351354

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Tomlinson, Andrew. Rationality and Information in Strategic Voting. 2001. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1001351354.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Tomlinson, Andrew. "Rationality and Information in Strategic Voting." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2001. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1001351354

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)