Economic Voting Theory in the Philippines

The study examined how the performance of the politicians influences the voters’ decisions in the elections. The researchers modified Reed’s (1994) performance-based voting model to evaluate the performance of the politicians during their term in office. Since the model is a repeated election framework, the researchers focused on the senatorial elections during the Arroyo to Duterte administration (2004-2019) in the Philippines. The framework was used to determine whether the prospective or retrospective voting theories occurred in the elections and was able to compute for the value of the office of the politicians and evaluate their performance in office. The study showed that the retrospective voting theory occurred more than the prospective voting theory. It also showed that the citizens would vote for the senator regardless of their performance in office.

Economic voting in the Philippines

The article wanted to find out if elections in the Philippines are economically motivated. Using 2019 gubernatorial election results, a logit model with inflation rate, unemployment rate, provincial revenue, and poverty incidence for the economic variables and party affiliation with the President and membership in a political family as the political variables was tested to explain the probability of an incumbent governor to be re-elected. The marginal effects tell us that a change in the unemployment rate decreases the predicted probability of a governor being reelected but interestingly, a change in the poverty incidence rates has the opposite effect.

Television and Economic Voting in US Presidential Elections

In this study, I investigate how information made available by the introduction of television affected the importance of the national economy in the context of US presidential elections from 1944 to 1964. Using the fact that television stations were introduced in counties across the United States at different points in time, I assess the effect of television on economic voting using a difference-in-differences design. I first show that television stations spent more time covering national politicians than did local newspapers in the 1960 presidential election. More national news increased the salience of the national economy in presidential elections. There was no evidence that television affected prospective pocketbook voting.

La Falla de las Encuestas en las Elecciones Argentinas de 2019. Un Análisis en Perspectiva Comparada Internacional (The Failure of the Polls in the 2019 Argentine Elections. An Analysis in International Comparative Perspective)

(English): The performance of polls in the 2019 Argentine elections reached its lowest point since democratic restoration in 1983. Their errors were much greater than those observed in recent years in mature democracies, where there is talk about a crisis of this type of surveys. In the primaries, Argentine pollsters widely underestimated the advantage of the Everyone's Front opposition alliance over the governing Together for Change. But after adjusting their methods, in the general election they overestimated that advantage by similar margins. We analyze both failures in an international comparative perspective. Vote intention data for president was used to calculate error indicators and compare them with current international averages and those of past decades, and with errors in several electoral cycles in the US and the UK. We examine ongoing changes in the survey industry, falling response rates, and causes of error identified by new academic studies and work commissioned by professional associations in the field of public opinion research. This literature shows that pre-election polls are no more inaccurate today than in the past and underlines the importance of "non-sampling" errors, particularly those produced by non-response bias, when the probability of participating in a poll is lower for certain groups, such as people with little interest in politics or low social or institutional trust. These types of errors and their causes are now better understood and procedures can be designed to improve the accuracy of estimations. We also discuss the impact of inaccurate polls on political strategies and the media narrative of elections, as well as the difficulty for pollsters, journalists and political actors to acknowledge and communicate the levels of uncertainty associated with electoral predictions. Our analysis highlights basic limitations of the polling industry and public opinion research in Argentina, such as the lack of a professional association and the incipient development of electoral behavior studies. Pollsters were surprised when voters punished the government because of the economic crisis, even though it was the most likely scenario according to a not very large but significant set of empirical studies on economic voting in Argentina and Latin America. The substantial errors in 2019 have implications for the reliability of issue polling, which may show a distorted picture of opinions in Argentine society.

The interplay of economic vote dimensions: inequality, redistribution preferences and support for incumbents

Economic voting is multidimensional (covering valence, patrimony and positional dimensions), and a growing number of research contributions have explored the existence and strength of the effect of these dimensions on voting. However, we know comparatively little about the interplay between these dimensions. This article fills that void by focusing on how the interplay between the rise of income inequality (the valence dimension) and redistribution preferences (the positional dimension) influences support for incumbents. Using the Comparative Study of Electoral Systems (CSES) Modules 4 and 5, I find that preferences for income redistribution reduce the likelihood of voters supporting incumbent parties. Modest evidence demonstrates that this relationship is stronger in countries where inequality increased to a greater degree between elections. Voters who want more redistribution tend to re-elect left-wing governments and want to throw out right-wing incumbents. However, rise of inequality hurts both left-wing and right-wing incumbents.

The Impact of COVID-19 on Trump’s Electoral Demise: The Role of Economic and Democratic Accountability

Did the COVID-19 crisis have a significant effect on Trump’s electoral demise? We present survey experimental evidence on two substantial effects of the pandemic. First, information on the unprecedented economic downturn significantly depressed Trump’s popular support across all partisan groups, and especially among middle-low and low-income respondents. Second, being primed on the poor public health record of the Trump administration reduced its electoral prospects among citizens between 55 and 70 years old. We conclude that the 2020 election was a normal contest compatible with theories of economic voting and political competence. Our results suggest that democratic accountability can be a powerful determinant of the fate of populist leaders once in power.

Class voting or economic voting? Electoral support for chavismo (1998–2015)

This article analyses electoral support for chavismo in Venezuela from 1998 to 2015, comprising five presidential elections (1998, 2000, 2006, 2012, and 2013) and the legislative election of 2015. Drawing on a comprehensive historical series, the findings contradict an influential body of literature on Venezuelan politics and show that economic voting prevailed during the analysed period. In relation to class voting, the analysis does not find a monotonic vote, in which the poor supported Hugo Chávez and his allies, whereas the rich rejected them, at each election. The direction of associations between these classes and voting for chavismo varied over the investigated period. The findings have important implications for Latin American politics, showing the relevance of economic factors for the left turn in regional politics and helping explain the recent losses of leftist parties in presidential elections.