Primaries, Strategic Voters and Heterogeneous Valences

We propose a two-party model of policy promises and valence for office-seeking candidates under a two-stage electoral process with strategic voters. In each party, there are two candidates, where one of these candidates—called the party’s advantaged candidate—has higher valence than the other. There are two equilibrium regimes. Which equilibrium arises depends on whether an advantaged candidate in one party can win both stages of the election with certainty. We provide the conditions for the existence of each regime and conduct comparative statics. In particular, we show that when an advantaged candidate’s valence increases, the distance between the policy promises made by the two advantaged candidates decreases and when public opinion becomes more diverse, the advantaged candidates shift their policy promises toward their own parties’ bliss points. Finally, we study the case where only one party holds a primary as well as the situation in which candidates strategically choose to enter a primary. Our model is robust under various extensions, and particularly useful for conducting comparative statics and providing testable predictions for electoral outcomes as public opinion changes.