A Model of Primary Voter Behavior

Abstract

This article develops and tests a model of voter behavior in a primary election. The model integrates several schools of thought that have tried to explain voter behavior; it is tested by predicting the behavior of respondents based on the model, and then validating the results with the actual behavior of the respondents. Results obtained here provide a prediction rate of 90 percent correctly classified. The article then compares the explanatory and predictive power of the model to models that use demographic and political involvement data.