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Political scientists have assumed that dividing the electorate into issue publics, on the basis of salient issues, leads to a better understanding of the relationships between issues and both candidate evaluations and electoral choice. This portrait accords nicely with the description offered by pluralists of the operation of the electoral arena. Our data suggest that, at least in 1972, the portrait is flawed. Using a variety of multivariate tech niques we show that salience fails to sharpen the impact of issues and that electoral choice was, fundamentally, a question of candidate images.

This article examines the impact of voter reactions to Watergate and the 1973-1974 reces sion, as well as the voters' evaluations of presidential performance and of the presence or absence of an incumbent on individual vote choice in the 1974 House of Representatives elections. The influence of these variables is considered within the context of an attitudinal model of voter choice, using path analysis of responses by voters included in the 1974 University of Michigan National Election Study. Party identification and candidate related variables (incumbency and candidate name familiarity) contribute more to the explanation of vote choice than do voter evaluations of Watergate, the recession, and presidential performance. The total set of explanatory variables are able to account for 43% of the variance in vote choice.

"The paper tests a simple model of vote choice in a mixed electoral system when voters have two
votes with survey data collected at the time of the 2010 North Rhine Westphalia election. We
show that local candidate preferences and local chances affect only the local vote while party
and leader ratings influence both votes though more strongly the list vote. Contrary to
expectations, coalition preferences influence the local vote as well as the list vote. There is
clearer evidence of the local vote being contaminated by the list vote than the other way
around." (author's abstract)

Little empirical research has investigated the influence of racial identification on Latino vote choice. This article examines this relationship controlling for socioeconomic and demographic factors. I argue that because race is central in determining the life chances and social positions of groups in the United States, racial self-identification influences the Latino voter's decision to cast a ballot for a coethnic candidate over a non-Latino candidate. Ordered probit models show that race is a significant predictor of Latino vote choice. The findings raise interesting questions about Latino bloc voting, candidate preference, and participation more broadly.

We examine voters' uncertainty as they assess candidates' policy positions in the 1994 congressional election & test the hypothesis that the Contract with America reduced voter uncertainty about the issue positions of Republican House candidates. This is done with an aggregate evaluation of issue uncertainty & corresponding vote choice where the uncertainty parameterization is derived from an entropy calculation on a set of salient election issues. The primary advantage is that it requires very few assumptions about the nature of the data. The entropic model suggests that voters used the written & explicit Republican agenda as a means of reducing issue uncertainty without substantially increasing time spent evaluating candidate positions. 1 Table, 1 Figure, 1 Appendix, 69 References. [Copyright 2005 Elsevier Ltd.]