Presidential election polls in 2000: a study in dynamics.

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Presidential election polls in 2000: a study in dynamics.

The study of voters and elections has taught us a lot about individuals' vote choices and election outcomes themselves. We know that voters behave in fairly understandable ways on election day (see, e.g., Alvarez 1997; Campbell 2000; Campbell et al. 1960; Gelman and King 1993; Johnston et al. 1992; Lazarsfeld, Berelson, and Gaudet 1944; Lewis-Beck 1988). We also know that the actual outcomes are fairly predictable (see, e.g., Campbell and Garand 2000). Of course, what we do know is imperfect. (1) Even to the extent we can predict what voters and electorates do at the very end, we know relatively little about how voter preferences evolve to that point. How does the outcome come into focus as the election campaign unfolds? Put differently, how does the campaign bring the fundamentals of the election to the voters?

Previous research suggests that preferences evolve in a fairly patterned and understandable way (Campbell 2000; Wlezien and Erikson 2002). This research focuses on the relationship between election results for a set of years and trial-heat poll readings at varying points in time during the election cycle, mostly for presidential elections in the United States. (2) What it shows is that the predictability of outcomes increases in proportion to the closeness of the polling date to election day. The closer we are to the end of the race, the more the polls tell us about the ultimate outcome. Although this may not be surprising, it is important: the basic pattern implies that electoral sentiment crystallizes over the course of election campaigns.

The previous research takes us only part of the way. That is, it does not explicitly address dynamics. This is quite understandable; after all, we lack anything approaching a daily time series of candidate preferences until only the most recent ele...

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