11,181 research outputs found
The “Timeline” method of studying electoral dynamics
No full textTo study the evolution of electoral preferences, Erikson and Wlezien (2012) propose assessing the correspondence between pre-election polls and the vote in a set of elections. That is, they treat poll data not as a set of time series but as a series of cross-sections—across elections—for each day of the election cycle. This “timeline” method does not provide complete information, but does reveal general patterns of electoral dynamics, and has been applied to elections in numerous countries. The application of the method involves a number of decisions that have not been explicitly addressed in previous research, however. There are three primary issues: (1) how best to assess the evolution of preferences; (2) how to deal with missing data; and (3) the consequences of sampling error. This paper considers each of these issues and provides answers. In the end, the analyses suggest that simpler approaches are better. It also may be that a more general strategy is possible, in which scholars could explicitly model the variation in poll-vote error across countries, elections, parties and time. We consider that direction for future research in the concluding section
Replication Data for: Mass Media and Electoral Preference during the 2016 Presidential Election
No full textThese files include all the material required to replicate results in the forthcoming paper, "Mass Media and Electoral Preference during the 2016 Presidential Election," by Christopher Wlezien and Stuart Soroka, Political Behavior
Replication Data for "News and Public Opinion: Which Comes First?"
No full textDatasets and code to produce figures and tables in the article to be published in the Journal of Politics
Replication Data for: Mass Media and Electoral Preference during the 2016 Presidential Election
No full textThese files include all the material required to replicate results in the forthcoming paper, "Mass Media and Electoral Preference during the 2016 Presidential Election," by Christopher Wlezien and Stuart Soroka, Political Behavior
Institutions, parties, and the evolution of electoral preferences
No full textPolitical institutions and parties define the set of choices faced by voters, and structure the evolution of electoral preferences over the election cycle. While previous research examines the characteristics of institutions, here we consider the influence of political parties. We theorize ways in which they matter to the formation of electoral preferences over the election timeline, and also how these relate to institutional features. Our analysis simultaneously assesses the influence of different system- and party-level variables on the dynamic structure of voters’ preferences in legislative elections using a dataset of 27,357 vote intention polls in 26 countries since 1942, covering 231 discrete electoral cycles and encompassing 208 political parties. The results indicate that electoral institutions and parties are both important, but the characteristics of parties matter most of all, and effectively mediate institutional influences. These results have implications for the effects of election campaigns, the prediction of election outcomes, and party behavior itself.</p
The timeline of elections: a comparative perspective
No full textScholars are only beginning to understand the evolution of electoral sentiment over time. How do preferences come into focus over the electoral cycle in different countries? Do they evolve in patterned ways? Does the evolution vary across countries? This paper addresses these issues. We consider differences in political institutions and how they might impact voter preferences over the course of the election cycle. We then outline an empirical analysis relating support for parties or candidates in pre-election polls to their final vote. The analysis relies on over 26,000 vote intention polls in 45 countries since 1942, covering 312 discrete electoral cycles. Our results indicate that early polls contain substantial information about the final result but that they become increasingly informative over the election cycle. Although the degree to which this is true varies across countries in important and understandable ways given differences in political institutions, the pattern is strikingly general
Election polling errors across time and space
No full textAre election polling misses becoming more prevalent? Are they more likely in some contexts than others? In this paper we undertake an over-time and cross-national assessment of prediction errors in pre-election polls. Our analysis draws on more than 26,000 polls from 338 elections in 45 countries over the period between 1942 and 2013, as well as data on more recent elections from 2014 to 2016. We proceed in the following way. First, building on previous studies, we demonstrate how poll errors evolve in a structured way over the election timeline. Second, we then focus on errors in polls in the final week of the campaign to examine poll performance across election years. Third, we use the historical performance of polls to benchmark recent polling “misses” in the UK, US and elsewhere. Fourth, we undertake a pooled analysis of polling errors – controlling for a number of institutional and party features – which enables us to test whether poll errors have increased or decreased over time. We find that, contrary to conventional wisdom, recent performance of polls has not been outside the ordinary. The performance of polls does vary across political contexts, however, in understandable ways
Replication Data for: Forecasting the 2020 Presidential Election: Leading Economic Indicators, Polls, and the Vote
No full textThe materials include data and code necessary to replicate the analyses in the article
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