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Vote Choice in Suburban Elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2007

J. ERIC OLIVER  and
SHANG E. HA
J. ERIC OLIVER
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
SHANG E. HA
Affiliation:
University of Chicago and Public Policy Institute of California
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Abstract

Despite the importance of local elections in the United States, political scientists have little knowledge of what shapes vote choice in most municipalities and special districts, particularly in the suburbs where a majority of Americans live. This article develops and tests models of local voting behavior using unique survey data of over 1,400 voters in 30 different suburban communities. Suburban electoral politics are dominated by a nonrepresentative group of “stakeholders,” who are highly informed and interested in local affairs. Because of this, vote choice in suburban elections ends up sharing many characteristics with larger contests (i.e., issue salience, partisanship, and candidate likeability), although their impact varies with the size and diversity of the particular community (e.g., in smaller suburbs, voters are more engaged in local politics, more likely to know candidates personally, and more likely to vote against incumbents). These findings suggest the importance of developing new theories about voting behavior in micro-electoral contexts.

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ARTICLES
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American Political Science Review , Volume 101 , Issue 3 , August 2007 , pp. 393 - 408
Copyright
© 2007 by the American Political Science Association

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