This chapter explores the relevance of social cues for voting behavior in Germany. It explores effects of social cues that build on role-based and social-similarity-based stereotyping. Using data from voter surveys that are merged with information about candidate characteristics, the analysis demonstrates that role-based cues played no part in affecting voter decisions on the first vote in the 2009 and 2013 German federal elections. By contrast, cues that build on social similarity (e.g. gender, age, education, social class, religion, or migrant background) appear to have made a difference, at least in certain subsections of the electorate, such as partisan independents.
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