Fighting over friends and neighbors: The effect of inter-candidate geographic distance on intra-party competition

Abstract

Previous studies on intra-party competition have largely neglected the role played by geographic distance between co-partisan candidates. In this paper, we argue that candidates who live further away from intra-party competitors on the same party list benefit electorally from their remoteness. Moreover, we contend that the electoral effectiveness of exhibiting local personal vote attributesa theoretically and empirically well-established candidate strategy to cultivate personal votesalso depends on the geographical proximity of localized co-partisan candidates. Using a unique and untapped dataset of more than 6,000 Finnish election candidates' home address coordinates over four consecutive parliamentary elections, we run beta regression models to examine the effects of candidate remoteness and nearest candidates' local characteristics on intra-party vote shares. To measure the remoteness of a particular candidate, we develop a novel index based on the distribution of co-partisans over concentric circles around that candidate. The beta regression models and a battery of robustness tests confirm that geographic remoteness is associated with higher intra-party vote shares, and that nearby located localized candidates prove electorally harmful. Our findings have important implications for politicians' careers, party nomination strategies and future empirical research on intra-party competition.

‘It’s a Long Way from Kuusamo to Kuhmo’: Mapping Candidates’ Electoral Constituencies in the Finnish Open-List Single Preference Voting System

“…With the Kainuu incumbent Ulla Parviainen fighting for her parliamentary life in 2019 -she gained 87.7% of her personal vote in her home municipality of Kuusamo 4 years earlier -she managed only 8% of her total personal vote from neighbouring Taivalkoski where there was no local KESK candidate (cf. Put et al 2020). She was not re-elected.…”

“…The electoral value of localness -the home turf advantage -may be diminished by the presence of proximate co-partisan rivals with competing claims to localness. Moreover, the vote increment accruing from localness, based on a candidate's exclusive and/or hegemonic position in the primary electoral constituency à la H1 -or what Put et al (2020) refer to as candidate 'localness and remoteness' -may be undermined by the pull of a highprofile outsider who will skew the distribution of the candidate vote across the district. Put another way, localness and remoteness will be trumped by the appeal of a nationally known 'offcomer' who may not even need to canvass to attract votes in the locality.…”

Understudied questions of Key's friends and neighbors voting thesis

“…However, another stream of European research on "personal votes" in parliamentary regimes showed that the effect of birthplace is magnified under "open-list" electoral systems where more intraparty competition occurs (Shugart, Valdini, and Suominen, 2005). Localness as a "shortcut" to guide voter choice under open-list representation was also reported in Hamburg, Germany (Jankowski, 2016), Estonia (Tavits, 2010), Belgium (Put and Maddens, 2015), and Finland (Put, Schoultz, and Isotalo, 2020). Because general elections provide the strongest alternative voting "cue" to using localism, namely the candidates' party affiliations, Hypothesis 1 posits that F&N effects will be stronger in primary elections than in general elections.…”

Local Candidates, Place-Based Identities, and Electoral Success

“…Therefore, we control for a number of municipal-level covariates that could, on average, impact voters' evaluation of the candidates' choice set. We control for the number of inhabitants, the geographical size of a municipality (Lewis-Beck & Rice, 1983), its degree of urbanization (Blais et al, 2003;Meredith, 2013), and whether another local candidate is running for office (Put, von Schoultz, & Isotalo, 2020).…”