Strategic Poll Responses When Elections Create Mandates

John Chilton

Public Choice, 1998, vol. 94, issue 1-2, 47 pages

Abstract: Larger margins of victory impart mandates that pull government policy toward a winner's platform. Voters with centrist preferences then may find preelection polls useful. Centrists wish to moderate mandates and may abstain rather than vote for the nearest candidate. If polls are known to elicit voting intentions, then races will tend to be closer than predicted and turnout will be highest in races predicted to be tight. However, voters at the extremes will respond to polls with guile--indeed all voters will. As a result, centrists cannot rely on preelection polls and poll results have no effect on voting. Copyright 1998 by Kluwer Academic Publishers

Date: 1998
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