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Policy Expectations and Proximity vs. Directional Voting

Phil Paolino and I conducted experiments to test whether voters are more likely to vote for the closest candidate in an election (proximity voting) or the candidate on their side ideologically (directional voting).Testing_proximity_versus_directional_vot

In an earlier article, Phil Paolino and I showed that voters vote for the candidate who is most likely to move policy in their direction in concert with the position of the legislature. We call this policy expectations voting, which is different from the standard proximity model in which voters select the candidate whose position is closest to their own. lacy&paolino_1998_ajps