GOV 310L Lecture Notes - Lecture 24: Median Voter Theorem, Thermostat, Fivethirtyeight
Document Summary
Objectives: median voter theory, forecasting, non-majoritarian results. Five models: michigan (partisan) model, retrospective-voting model, valence (party-reputation) model, spatial model (also called proximity model, directional model more extremist candidates. Much discussion of elections (at least for political scientists)centers on the voter distribution (duverger) Popular way to understand the voter: any concerns about it. But, the primary system complicates things (most states have close primaries: you can only vote for your party) (flip-flop: when politicians take a position and change it few weeks later we don"t like it: primary voters tend to favor more partisan candidates, first you have to win the media voter of primary. Another complication is that people motivated to give lots of 31229$ to campaigns are typically not moderate. Responding to political base (especially rich donors) creates divergent pressures. Median voter goes hand in hand with the proximity model. (fivethirtyeight; an updating estimate of the generic ballot, based on polls that ask.
