IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/jothpo/v27y2015i3p351-379.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Open primaries and crossover voting

Author

Listed:
  • Seok-ju Cho

    (Department of Political Science, Yale University, CT, USA)

  • Insun Kang

    (Independent researcher, New Haven, CT, USA)

Abstract

We examine strategic voting in open primary elections by developing a Poisson voting game. In the model, two parties simultaneously hold primary elections, with two candidates competing in each party. Each voter chooses to vote for one of the four candidates without knowing how many other voters participate in each primary. Analyzing the model, we investigate what types of strategic crossover voting occur in equilibrium and under what circumstances they occur. In particular, we focus on two types of crossover voting: hedging (voting for the moderate candidate of the opposite party) and raiding (voting for the extreme candidate of the opposite party). We show that the pattern of strategic voting in equilibrium critically depends on candidate positions and uncertainty about the outcome in the general election.

Suggested Citation

  • Seok-ju Cho & Insun Kang, 2015. "Open primaries and crossover voting," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 27(3), pages 351-379, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:27:y:2015:i:3:p:351-379
    DOI: 10.1177/0951629814531671
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0951629814531671
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0951629814531671?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mandar P. Oak, 2006. "On The Role Of The Primary System In Candidate Selection," Economics and Politics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(2), pages 169-190, July.
    2. James Coleman, 1971. "Internal processes governing party positions in elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 11(1), pages 35-60, September.
    3. Chen, Kong-Pin & Yang, Sheng-Zhang, 2002. "Strategic Voting in Open Primaries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 112(1-2), pages 1-30, July.
    4. Roger B. Myerson, 1998. "Population uncertainty and Poisson games," International Journal of Game Theory, Springer;Game Theory Society, vol. 27(3), pages 375-392.
    5. Myerson, Roger B., 2000. "Large Poisson Games," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 94(1), pages 7-45, September.
    6. Cherry, Todd L & Kroll, Stephan, 2003. "Crashing the Party: An Experimental Investigation of Strategic Voting in Primary Elections," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 114(3-4), pages 387-420, March.
    7. Guillermo Owen & Bernard Grofman, 2006. "Two-stage electoral competition in two-party contests: persistent divergence of party positions," Social Choice and Welfare, Springer;The Society for Social Choice and Welfare, vol. 26(3), pages 547-569, June.
    8. Gerber, Elisabeth R & Morton, Rebecca B, 1998. "Primary Election Systems and Representation," The Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, Oxford University Press, vol. 14(2), pages 304-324, October.
    9. James Adams & Samuel Merrill, 2008. "Candidate and Party Strategies in Two‐Stage Elections Beginning with a Primary," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 52(2), pages 344-359, April.
    10. John Cadigan & Eckhard Janeba, 2002. "A Citizen-Candidate Model with Sequential Elections," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 14(4), pages 387-407, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Shino Takayama, 2014. "A Model of Two-stage Electoral Competition with Strategic Voters," Discussion Papers Series 525, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    2. Cintolesi, Andrea, 2022. "Political polarization and primary elections," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 596-617.
    3. Akifumi Ishihara, 2020. "Strategic candidacy for political compromise in party politics," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 32(3), pages 389-408, July.
    4. Bernard Grofman & Orestis Troumpounis & Dimitrios Xefteris, 2016. "Electoral competition with primaries and quality asymmetries," Working Papers 135286117, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    5. Diego Carrasco Novoa & Shino Takayamaz & Yuki Tamura & Terence Yeo, 2020. "Primaries, Strategic Voters and Heterogeneous Valences," Discussion Papers Series 631, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    6. Hummel, Patrick, 2010. "Flip-flopping from primaries to general elections," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(11-12), pages 1020-1027, December.
    7. Andreottola, Giovanni, 2021. "Signaling valence in primary elections," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 1-32.
    8. Hummel, Patrick, 2013. "Candidate strategies in primaries and general elections with candidates of heterogeneous quality," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 85-102.
    9. Giovanni Andreottola, 2020. "Signaling Valence in Primary Elections," CSEF Working Papers 559, Centre for Studies in Economics and Finance (CSEF), University of Naples, Italy.
    10. Le Breton, Michel & Lepelley, Dominique & Smaoui, Hatem, 2012. "The Probability of Casting a Decisive Vote: From IC to IAC trhough Ehrhart's Polynomials and Strong Mixing," IDEI Working Papers 722, Institut d'Économie Industrielle (IDEI), Toulouse.
    11. Micael Castanheira, 2003. "Why Vote For Losers?," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1207-1238, September.
    12. Pierre Bernhard & Marc Deschamps, 2017. "On Dynamic Games with Randomly Arriving Players," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 360-385, September.
    13. Alastair Smith & Bruce Bueno de Mesquita & Tom LaGatta, 2017. "Group incentives and rational voting1," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 29(2), pages 299-326, April.
    14. Andonie, Costel & Kuzmics, Christoph, 2012. "Pre-election polls as strategic coordination devices," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 84(2), pages 681-700.
    15. François Durand & Antonin Macé & Matias Nunez, 2019. "Analysis of Approval Voting in Poisson Games," Working Papers halshs-02049865, HAL.
    16. Hillenbrand, Adrian & Winter, Fabian, 2018. "Volunteering under population uncertainty," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 65-81.
    17. Jehiel, Philippe & Lamy, Laurent, 2014. "On discrimination in procurement auctions," CEPR Discussion Papers 9790, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    18. Laurent Bouton & Micael Castanheira, 2012. "One Person, Many Votes: Divided Majority and Information Aggregation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 80(1), pages 43-87, January.
    19. Boosey, Luke & Brookins, Philip & Ryvkin, Dmitry, 2017. "Contests with group size uncertainty: Experimental evidence," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 105(C), pages 212-229.
    20. Milchtaich, Igal, 2004. "Random-player games," Games and Economic Behavior, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 353-388, May.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:jothpo:v:27:y:2015:i:3:p:351-379. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.