Election Campaign with Statements

Kfir Eliaz and Ariel Rubinstein

No 21491, CEPR Discussion Papers from Centre for Economic Policy Research

Abstract: We propose a model of electoral competition in which parties compete by making statements linking policies to outcomes. Voters assess these statements not by Bayesian updating, but by sequentially sampling past cases until they encounter evidence that confirms or refutes one of the two statements made by the incumbent and a challenger. The incumbent's policy determines the distribution of cases voters observe. We introduce equilibrium notions capturing stable regimes and cyclical competition over statements. Our analysis highlights several phenomena such as: logically equivalent statements may differ in effectiveness, parties with less successful policies may remain in power, society may become trapped in cycles of power change, and politicians may strategically deviate from their ideology to shape the evidence available to voters.

Keywords: Electoral; campaign (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D72 D91 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026-05
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