The best of both worlds? Evaluating the campaign behaviour of dual candidates

Trumm, Siim

Abstract

The conventional wisdom of electoral politics suggests that parliamentary candidates who run for office under candidate-centred mechanisms tend to conduct more intense and personalised campaigns than those who run under party-centred ones. But what about the campaigns put in place by candidates who simultaneously run under both systems? Using original data from the 2016 Welsh Candidate Study, this article shows that dual candidates’ campaign behaviour is distinct from that of their constituency and regional list counterparts. Their campaign effort tends to be more intense as well as complex than that put in place by candidates who stand in one tier only. In addition, the findings show that dual candidates’ campaign messages tend to be more personalised than those of regional list candidates, but less personalised than those of constituency candidates. These results indicate that the electoral campaigns put in place by dual candidates combine elements of campaigning under candidate-centred and party-centred electoral systems.

Citation

Trumm, S. (2018). The best of both worlds? Evaluating the campaign behaviour of dual candidates. Electoral Studies, 56, 14-22. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2018.09.002

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Sep 1, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Sep 4, 2018
• Publication Date: 2018-12
• Deposit Date: Sep 3, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Mar 5, 2020
• Journal: Electoral Studies
• Print ISSN: 0261-3794
• Publisher: Elsevier
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 56
• Pages: 14-22
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.electstud.2018.09.002
• Keywords: Campaigns; Electoral institutions; Dual candidacy; Voter mobilisation; Devolution
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1056975
• Publisher URL: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261379418300787?via%3Dihub