IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/ratsoc/v27y2015i2p224-256.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Realizing “strategic†voting in presidential primaries

Author

Listed:
  • Gar Culbert

Abstract

Those who study vote choice in presidential nominating contests often ask, “Are voters sincere (voting with their ‘true’ preferences), are they sophisticated (giving more weight to a candidate’s chances of winning the nomination), or are they strategic (placing greater value on a candidate’s chances of winning a general election)?†By analyzing survey data from the 1984, 1988, 2000, and 2004 presidential nominating contests, this study argues that voters are more strategic than previously understood, and that prior studies, confined by methodology and data, are often mistaken when they maintain that primary voters are sophisticated. In actuality, primary voters are more likely to cast strategic votes, and not sophisticated ones.

Suggested Citation

  • Gar Culbert, 2015. "Realizing “strategic†voting in presidential primaries," Rationality and Society, , vol. 27(2), pages 224-256, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:ratsoc:v:27:y:2015:i:2:p:224-256
    DOI: 10.1177/1043463115576139
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1043463115576139
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/1043463115576139?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. Bartels, Larry M., 1985. "Expectations and Preferences in Presidential Nominating Campaigns," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 79(3), pages 804-815, September.
    2. Anthony Downs, 1957. "An Economic Theory of Political Action in a Democracy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65, pages 135-135.
    3. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    4. Ferejohn, John A. & Fiorina, Morris P., 1975. "Closeness Counts Only in Horseshoes and Dancing," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 69(3), pages 920-925, September.
    5. J. Scott Long & Jeremy Freese, 2006. "Regression Models for Categorical Dependent Variables using Stata, 2nd Edition," Stata Press books, StataCorp LP, edition 2, number long2, March.
    6. Riker, William H. & Ordeshook, Peter C., 1968. "A Theory of the Calculus of Voting," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 62(1), pages 25-42, March.
    7. Ferejohn, John A. & Fiorina, Morris P., 1974. "The Paradox of Not Voting: A Decision Theoretic Analysis," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 68(2), pages 525-536, June.
    8. Markus, Gregory B. & Converse, Philip E., 1979. "A Dynamic Simultaneous Equation Model of Electoral Choice," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 73(4), pages 1055-1070, December.
    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. Peter C. Ordeshook & Langche Zeng, 1997. "Rational Voters and Strategic Voting," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 9(2), pages 167-187, April.
    2. Wilson Law, 2021. "Decomposing political advertising effects on vote choices," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 188(3), pages 525-547, September.
    3. Thomas Schwartz, 1987. "Your vote counts on account of the way it is counted: An institutional solution to the paradox of not voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 101-121, January.
    4. Puppe, Clemens & Rollmann, Jana, 2022. "Participation in voting over budget allocations: A field experiment," Working Paper Series in Economics 155, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Department of Economics and Management.
    5. Carole Uhlaner, 1989. "“Relational goods” and participation: Incorporating sociability into a theory of rational action," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 62(3), pages 253-285, September.
    6. John Carter, 1984. "Early projections and voter turnout in the 1980 presidential election," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 43(2), pages 195-202, January.
    7. Guillermo Owen & Bernard Grofman, 1984. "To vote or not to vote: The paradox of nonvoting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 42(3), pages 311-325, January.
    8. Ming Li & Dipjyoti Majumdar, 2010. "A Psychologically Based Model of Voter Turnout," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 12(5), pages 979-1002, October.
    9. Schnellenbach, Jan & Schubert, Christian, 2015. "Behavioral political economy: A survey," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 40(PB), pages 395-417.
    10. 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.
    11. Alessandro Morselli, 2021. "Individual decisions and collective choices in the history of economic thought," Economic Thought journal, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences - Economic Research Institute, issue 3, pages 77-96,97-11.
    12. Serge Blondel & Louis Lévy-garboua, 2011. "Can non-expected utility theories explain the paradox of not voting?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 31(4), pages 3158-3168.
    13. Fosco, Constanza & Laruelle, Annick & Sánchez, Angel, 2009. "Turnout Intention and Social Networks," IKERLANAK info:eu-repo/grantAgreeme, Universidad del País Vasco - Departamento de Fundamentos del Análisis Económico I.
    14. Norman Frohlich & Joe Oppenheimer & Pat Bond & Irvin Boschman, 1984. "Beyond Economic Man," Journal of Conflict Resolution, Peace Science Society (International), vol. 28(1), pages 3-24, March.
    15. Thomas Mustillo, 2016. "Party–voter linkages derived from the calculus of voting model: Electoral mobilization in Ecuador," Rationality and Society, , vol. 28(1), pages 24-51, February.
    16. Hamlin, Alan & Jennings, Colin, 2011. "Expressive Political Behaviour: Foundations, Scope and Implications," British Journal of Political Science, Cambridge University Press, vol. 41(3), pages 645-670, July.
    17. Julio Rotemberg, 2009. "Attitude-dependent altruism, turnout and voting," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 140(1), pages 223-244, July.
    18. Stephen Hansen & Thomas Palfrey & Howard Rosenthal, 1987. "The Downsian model of electoral participation: Formal theory and empirical analysis of the constituency size effect," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 52(1), pages 15-33, January.
    19. Cameron Guage & Feng Fu, 2021. "Asymmetric Partisan Voter Turnout Games," Dynamic Games and Applications, Springer, vol. 11(4), pages 738-758, December.
    20. John Conley & Myrna H. Wooders & Ali Toossi, 2001. "Evolution & Voting: How Nature Makes us Public Spirited," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 28(24), pages 1.

    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:ratsoc:v:27:y:2015:i:2:p:224-256. 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.