Eventi del

26 2021 16:30 - 17:45
Webinar

Political Economy Seminar - Joint with the Ettore Bocconi Department of Economics

Do Polls Affect Elections? Evidence from Swiss Referenda

Davide Cantoni (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)

Abstract: Public opinion polls have failed in predicting the outcomes of very high stakes votes in recent years. We propose that polls themselves may shape election outcomes by affecting voter turnout. We first present evidence that polls have a causal effect on voter turnout, with voters turning out more in response to close polls. To identify this causal effect, we exploit the precise day-level timing of the release of Swiss national poll results for federal referenda, and a  dataset on daily mail-in voting for the canton of Geneva. The release of a closer poll causes voter turnout to sharply rise immediately after poll release, with cumulative turnout remaining significantly higher through election day. Turnout rates are no different in the days prior to the release of close polls, suggesting that the information contained in the polls was not anticipated. We then provide evidence that this turnout effect can shape election outcomes. We find that the effect of close polls is heterogeneous, with an asymmetric effect leading to a higher vote share for the underdog, and effects varying with newspaper coverage of polls. The effect sizes we estimate are large enough to flip extremely high-stakes election outcomes.

 

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