Do campaigns affect the strategic calculus of voters? Campaigns may provide voters with information about the viability of parties and likely coalitions. As a consequence, voters may update their political perceptions and try to avoid wasting their vote or engage in coalition-targeted strategic voting. However, not all voters might be equally susceptible to strategic momentum as previous research suggests that strategic ticket-splitting is most common among highly sophisticated voters. In this paper, I examine how election campaigns affect voters' strategic considerations using data from three rolling cross-section surveys conducted at the 2005, 2009 and 2013 German federal elections. Accompanying data on news coverage and published media polls are used to assess to what extent campaign information can alter the political perceptions and may account for electoral volatility during the campaign. The paper contributes to the ongoing debates on campaign effects and strategic voting in PR systems.
