Voter Priming Campaigns: Strategies, Equilibria, and Algorithms

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the strategies, equilibria, and algorithms of voter priming campaigns in multi-issue, multi-party elections, providing computational methods and insights into campaign spending dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces models for campaign spending strategies, proves the existence of equilibria in parliamentary settings, and characterizes the absence of equilibria in most presidential scenarios.

Findings

Pure equilibrium spending exists in parliamentary elections and can be computed efficiently.

In two-party systems, equilibrium involves investing in a single issue, with polynomial-time computation.

Most presidential election models lack equilibrium, highlighting strategic complexities.

Abstract

Issue salience is a major determinant in voters' decisions. Candidates and political parties campaign to shift salience to their advantage - a process termed priming. We study the dynamics, strategies and equilibria of campaign spending for voter priming in multi-issue multi-party settings. We consider both parliamentary elections, where parties aim to maximize their share of votes, and various settings for presidential elections, where the winner takes all. For parliamentary elections, we show that pure equilibrium spending always exists and can be computed in time linear in the number of voters. For two parties and all settings, a spending equilibrium exists such that each party invests only in a single issue, and an equilibrium can be computed in time that is polynomial in the number of issues and linear in the number of voters. We also show that in most presidential settings no equilibrium exists. Additional properties of optimal campaign strategies are also studied.