Theories of Voting Behavior Last time: Who gets the news? Whose opinions can be “spun”? Today: theories of voting behavior, an introduction

Last time: Who gets the news? Price and Zaller: who is best at news story recall? –background levels of political knowledge strongly predict recall of political news stories Implications? –it’s the middle range of sophisticates likely to be the most manipulable Critiques: –on-line processing + framing effects could lead to manipulation w/o many traces –even the highly sophisticated may be subject to framing effects

Last time: Who can be primed by news coverage? Miller and Krosnick: how does news media coverage of events affect issue salience? –M&K find that politically knowledgeable individuals are more responsive to media priming, not less as expected by conventional wisdom –interpretation: trust relationship; the politically knowledgeable are better at recognizing new information from a trusted source

Voting “correctly” How often do voters make the “right” choice vis-à- vis their own self interest? –conventional argument distinguishes between “sophisticated” voters making evidence-based “rational” calculations and unsophisticated voters voting at random or according to habit –Lau and Redlawsk: cast the same vote they would have cast with full info; estimate ~75 pct of votes in prez elections are “correct” –inference from limited information – heuristics? are heuristics systematically biased tools for making choices? –do the highly politically aware differ from the low-aware systematically in terms of preferences?

Proximity voting? spatial theory of elections: what kinds of issue platforms/candidate reputations are favored? –assumes participants are known in advance; candidate goal is to maximize share of vote; usual conclusion is centripetal incentives vis-à-vis the distribution of voter preferences –consequences for the general election? mobilization models of election –both turnout and vote choice are in question for voters; –preference intensity matters –consequences for the general election?

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?

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?