Polling and Policy Announcements in Electoral Campaigns

• In Event: Elections

Abstract

Campaigns offer politicians the opportunity to communicate their policy platform to voters. The decision to announce a policy position on an issue can be crucial in determining a candidate's electoral success. On many issues, however, candidates face uncertainty over the policy preferences of voters. In turn, political campaigns are pay significant attention to polls and the prevailing voter sentiment. Consequently, candidates face an evolving political environment as they obtain new information about voters and observe the policy decisions of their opponents. In this paper we develop a model to study how electoral campaigns unfold as candidates learn about voters' pre ferences. In the model, there is an election that occurs at a fixed date. Two candidates compete for the median voter but it is unknown whether the median voter prefers the left or right policy. In each period candidates observe a signal about the median voter's ideal point. In any period before the election, candidates can announce a policy or remain ambiguous. Once a candidate announces a policy, she cannot revise it. However, there is an advantage for being the first to correctly announce the median voter's ideal point and a disadvantage for announcing the wrong policy first. We characterize equilibrium policy announcements in the campaign and how they respond to features of the election.

Authors

• Maria Titova, Vanderbilt University

• Peter Bils, Vanderbilt University