Are Voter Preferences Affected by Investments?

• In Event: Elections, Voting and Campaigning

Abstract

This paper looks at whether transatlantic firms’ investment decisions (increased/decreased) affect voting patterns (e.g. voting more conservative or liberal), controlling for other variables (voter registration, rural/urban, past election results, and similar factors). The larger question relates to globalization. The literature shows that rural areas are less liberal and less cosmopolitan than urban centers, but can foreign investments affect people’s views of globalization by affecting voting patterns? Studies suggest that the ideology of US state-level governments does not affect the overall level of foreign investments (Wang, 2021), but does the presence of large-scale foreign investment affect voters’ preferences? Furthermore, are there differences in how voters react in European Union countries compared with US states? This paper uses a multivariate regression analysis on publicly available data to answer these questions as part of a larger study on transatlantic economic and social relations.

Authors

• L. Johan Eliasson, East Stroudsburg University

• Delaney Ridgell, East Stroudsburg University