Religion and Ethnicity Traps: Behind the Intention to Vote of Millennial Voters

Millennial voters are a potential community that is a strategic target for pairs of candidates for regional election contestation to reap the coffers of votes. The campaign approach using religious and ethnic sentiments is an alternative strategy. This study looks at religion and ethnicity influencing millennial voters’ voting intentions. The research method uses quantitative methods with multiple linear regression. The research sample was drawn randomly according to the criteria so that the answers to 280 respondents were analyzed. The study results found that religion significantly influenced millennial voter intentions, while ethnicity did not affect millennial voter intentions. Millennial voters tend not to be interested in practical politics.

The degree of heterogeneity of news consumption in Germany—Descriptive statistics and relations with individual differences in personality, ideological attitudes, and voting intentions

This study aimed to examine the degree of homogeneity versus heterogeneity of individuals’ political information environments across offline and online media types and relations with sociodemographic variables, personality, and political attitudes. In two online surveys, German participants (sample 1: N = 686; sample 2: N = 702) provided information on sociodemographic variables, consumption of political news, and voting intentions, and completed the Big Five Inventory and Right-Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Social Dominance Orientation (SDO) scales. Results revealed that absolutely homogeneous political news consumption was evident for a small proportion of individuals (2.04% and 0.43%). Openness (positively) and Agreeableness (negatively) exhibited significant associations with the degree of heterogeneity of political information environments across samples. No consistent patterns of relations with either the ideological attitudes of RWA and SDO or voting intentions were observed. The findings shed light on the existence of absolutely homogeneous political information environments and “who” might be prone to a more homogeneous versus more heterogeneous information environment.

Presidential run-off is likely in Costa Rica next year

Significance This appears to reflect high levels of disillusionment with established political parties, possibly exacerbated by several public sector corruption scandals that have emerged in recent months. A run-off looks the most likely outcome of the first presidential round on February 6. Impacts A surge in COVID-19 cases, potentially linked to Omicron, could disrupt the presidential race, particularly affecting the ruling PAC. Further arrests in anti-corruption investigations could influence voting intentions. More details of policies will be released over the coming weeks, especially focused on socio-economic issues.

Stereotypes of Older Adults, Older Men, and Male Leaders Predict Expectations, Stance, and Voting Intentions

The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election offered a unique opportunity to examine how stereotypes of older adults, older men, and male leaders impact expectations of candidate job performance and intentions to vote for Biden or Trump. This online study involved 500 college students from two universities from September 30th until November 3 (Election Day). A Biden and Trump model were tested for the relationships among (a) stereotypes from public discourse with (b) expectations of candidates/ presidential performance with (c) voting stance (pro- and anti-Biden vs pro- and anti-Trump) and (d) intentions to vote for Biden/Trump. As expected, for the Biden model, endorsement of older adult (lesser endorsement of senile, unhealthy), male leadership (greater endorsement of assertive and collaborative, lesser endorsement of uncaring), and older male stereotypes (greater endorsement of elder statesman and family-focused) predicted greater expectations of Biden’s performance, which predicted pro-Biden and anti-Trump stances and ultimately voting intentions for Biden. As expected, for the Trump model, endorsement of older adult (lesser endorsement of senile), male leadership (greater endorsement of assertive, collaborative, lesser endorsement of immoral and uncaring), and older male stereotypes (greater endorsement of elder statesman) predicted greater expectations of Trump’s performance, which predicted pro-Trump and anti-Biden stances and ultimately voting intentions for Trump. Taken together, these results suggest examining relevant categories of stereotypes associated with candidates and voting stances provides a fuller picture of voting behavior toward multiple candidates vying for office in addition to political ideology and voting intentions.

Association between cigarette smoking status and voting intentions: Cross sectional surveys in England 2015-2020

Background and aims Cigarette smoking takes place within a cultural and social context. Political views and practices are an important part of that context. To gain a better understanding of smoking, it may be helpful to understand its association with voting patterns as an expression of the political views and practices of the population who smoke. This study aimed to assess the association between cigarette smoking and voting intentions and to examine how far any association can be explained by sociodemographic factors and alcohol use. Methods Pooled monthly representative repeat cross-sectional household surveys of adults (16+) in England (N = 55,482) between 2015 and 2020 were used to assess the association between cigarette smoking status and voting intentions, and whether this was accounted for by age, occupational grade, gender, region and alcohol use. Voting intention was measured by asking ‘How would you vote if there were a General Election tomorrow?’ Respondents chose from a list of the major English political parties or indicated their intention not to vote. Results In adjusted multinomial regression, compared with intending to vote Conservative (majority party of government during the period), being undecided (aOR1.22 [1.13-1.33] <0.001), intending to vote Labour (aOR1.27 [1.16-1.36] <0.001), to vote “Other” (aOR1.54 [1.37-1.72] <0.001), or not to vote (aOR1.93 [1.77-2.11] <0.001) was associated with higher odds of current relative to never smoking rates. Intending to vote for the Liberal Democrats was associated with a significant lower odds of current smoking prevalence (aOR0.80 [0.70-0.91] <0.001) compared with intending to vote Conservative. Conclusions Controlling for a range of other factors, current as compared with never-smokers appear more likely to intend not to vote, to be undecided, to vote for Labour or a non-mainstream party, and less likely to vote for the Liberal Democrats, compared with the Conservative party.

Inmigración y derecho al voto Una investigación exploratoria en Santiago de Chile

The objective of our research is to analyze the causes and/or factors that influence the voting intentions of immigrants in the municipality of Santiago, Chile. To achieve this, we interviewed twenty immigrants who had the right to vote in two different periods. Before and after the October 2016 municipal elections. By doing this we were able to compare their answers having the elections as a pivotal point. We followed a content analysis of their answers to evaluate their discourses with regards to voting intentions. We conclude that the factors that influence immigrants’ voting decisions are multiple. We center our conclusions in the lack of information migrants have on their electoral rights, the lack of interest of candidates on migrants as a voting force, and the lack of recognition from the State of migrants as legal subjects. These reasons produce high political indifference on immigrants.

Predicting current voting intentions by Big Five personality domains, facets, and nuances – A random forest analysis approach in a German sample

To understand what was driving individual differences in voting intentions in a large German sample, we investigated the predictability of voting intentions from the Big Five personality domains, facets, and nuances, thereby tackling shortcomings of previous studies. Using random forest analyses in a dataset of N = 4,286 individuals (46.01% men), separate models were trained to predict intentions to 1) not vote versus to vote, 2) vote for a specific party, and 3) vote for a left- versus right-from-the-center party from either the Big Five personality domains, facets, or nuances (represented by individual items). Except for intentions to not vote versus to vote, balanced accuracies to predict voting intentions marginally exceeded those achieved by a baseline learner always predicting the majority class. Using nuances over facets and domains slightly increased balanced accuracies. Results indicate that additional variables should be considered to accurately predict voting intentions, at least in German samples.

Individual differences in need satisfaction and intentions to vote for specific political parties – results from Germany

Understanding the psychological basis of individuals' voting intentions is of tremendous importance because voting for specific parties and politicians can influence political developments. In the present study associations of individuals’ satisfaction of each of Maslow’s five basic need categories with voting intentions were investigated in a German sample and these results were compared to results on associations between personality and voting intentions. An online survey was completed by N = 2593 (n = 1035 men) individuals. Participants provided information on socio-demographic characteristics, filled in the Need Satisfaction Inventory, the Big Five Inventory, and stated which of the major German parties they would vote for if general elections were held the following Sunday. Data were analyzed using the statistical software R and RStudio. Among others, it was found that higher satisfaction of physiological needs and higher satisfaction of safety and security needs were associated with intentions to vote for the currently governing party alliance, the CDU/CSU, versus for the right-wing AfD. Regarding personality, among others Openness was positively associated with intentions to vote for nearly every party (except the CDU/CSU) versus for the AfD. Effect sizes of associations were overall rather small; generally speaking, those related to the Need Satisfaction Inventory were even slightly smaller than those found for personality traits. The present results indicate that other factors aside from needs and personality must be considered to understand voting. Therefore, this study sets a starting point for further investigations to replicate and expand the present findings.