What impact do local candidates have on elections in single member district plurality electoral systems? We provide new evidence using data from a large election study carried out during the 2015 Canadian federal election. We improve on the measurement of local candidate effects by asking over 20,000 survey respondents to rate the candidates in their constituency directly. We present three estimates. We find that when all voters are considered together, local candidate evaluations are decisive for approximately 4 per cent of voters. Second, these evaluations are decisive for the outcome of 10 per cent of constituency contests. Third, when models are estimated for each constituency, we find significant evaluation effects for 14 per cent of candidates.

Do legislators from marginalized groups have non‐electoral motivations to represent ‘their’ group? Previous observational and experimental research on this question focuses on elected politicians and is thus unable to isolate representation absent a desire to win re‐election. We address this limitation by observing the decision‐making of appointed legislators who, by institutional design, have no personal re‐election motive. We administered to Canadian senators and their staff a novel survey instrument that captured how they prioritized learning about the policy opinions of various groups of citizens. We show that senators’ group identities—specifically, those associated with racial and regional minorities—influenced which group’s views they chose to learn about. The findings refine the central conclusion of the literature and have implications for the study not only of unelected legislators but also of elected officials in settings where public monitoring is weak.

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