Political Interest and the Effect of Political Candidates’ Charactersitics on Voters’ Preference for a Candidate.

Political behavior scholars seem to have reached a consensus that the personalization of politics constitutes an ongoing trend in Western democracies, with the profiles of leaders and candidates playing an increasingly important role in citizens’ voting behavior (e.g., Garzia 2014; McAllister 2007). Despite the suggested trend of personalization, surprisingly little research has systematically compared the extent to which various characteristics of candidates influence voters’ preference for candidates. Most existing research on candidates’ characteristics has focused on how the candidates’ gender affects voters’ likelihood of supporting the candidate. Some research suggests that people hold gender stereotypes which influence their likelihood of voting for a female candidate (e.g. Koch 2002, Rosenthal 1995). Other scholars (e.g., Campbell and Cowley 2014; Coffé and Theiss-Morse 2016; Dolan and Lynch 2014; Trent et al. 2001), however, find that a candidate’s gender does not have a major impact on citizens’ preference for a candidate. While mixed results have thus been found for the relevance of a candidate’s gender, little is known about the effect of other socio-economic characteristics of a candidate on voters’ likelihood of supporting a candidate. In addition, the extent to which the effect of candidates’ sociodemographic characteristics compares with the impact of other characteristics of candidates is not well understood. Therefore, the main aim of the current study is to investigate to what extent various characteristics of candidates influence voters’ likelihood of supporting a candidate. In particular, I compare the impact that candidates’ sociodemographic characteristics (gender, age and education), personality (reliability and ability to manage things), party affiliation and policy positions have when people decide whom they will vote for. Next to describing the importance of various characteristics of candidates, Il also investigate how political interest affects the impact that candidates’ characteristics have on the likelihood of supporting a candidate. Despite the increasing availability of political news through the media, there is a disparity between the politically interested and the politically uninterested in society (Prior 2005), and scholars have argued that politically engaged voters and politically uninterested voters make their voting decisions in differing ways (Cutler 2002). To answer my questions, I rely on the 2015 Finnish election survey. Finland is an interesting case as it has an open list system which compels the voter to cast their ballot for a candidate. Voters must choose between the candidates of a given party (Karvonen 2010), thus the electoral system is highly candidate-centered. In brief, I find that the candidates’ party affiliation has the most influential impact on voters’ preference, followed by the candidates’ policy positions. While candidates’ personality also matters, their sociodemographic profile has relatively little impact. The extent to which candidates’ personality and policy positions, the two characteristics which are most difficult for voters to ascertain and understand, influence voters’ preference for a candidate differs depending on voters’ levels of political interest. Their impact is largest amongst voters with high levels of political interest.