Abstract:
What are successful electoral strategies? Should candidates try to persuade “swing” voters or mobilize their “base”? We present a model that can address these and related questions in a single unifi…ed framework. We relate electoral strategies to the characteristics of voting groups, with the answers to these questions sometimes being surprising. We show how a candidate may have different ways of winning for given characteristics of the electoral population, with possible “discontinuities ”in electoral positions that win elections. We believe that the model helps clarify some key issues as well as presenting insights into some real-world experience.