What Are Friends for? The Effect of Geographic Proximity on Primary Turnout in Gubernatorial Elections

• Date: 01 June 2021
• Published date: 01 June 2021
• DOI: 10.1177/1065912920906202
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912920906202

Political Research Quarterly

2021, Vol. 74(2) 317 –331

© 2020 University of Utah

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DOI: 10.1177/1065912920906202

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Article

Voter turnout is one of the most important and fundamen-

tal aspects of a functioning democracy. Concerns over

low turnout constantly loom over elections in the United

States, especially in nonpresidential election years and in

primary elections. As such, there is a large body of litera-

ture examining voter turnout, and we know much about

factors that impede or increase the likelihood of voting at

both individual and aggregate levels. However, much of

this research examines both general elections and federal

elections. Overall, we know less about the decision to

vote in primary elections, especially state-level primary

elections. In this paper, we examine the potential for

local1 candidates to mobilize turnout in gubernatorial pri-

maries, conditional on an individual’s previous participa-

tion in primary elections.

Candidates running for office tend to receive higher

vote shares in their home counties and states. This elec-

toral phenomenon, illustrated most famously in Key’s

(1949) examination of political behavior in the American

South, is documented across several time periods and

electoral contexts.2 Local candidates receive more sup-

port from their “friends and neighbors,” those voters who

live within the candidate’s county or state of residence.

Explaining the causal process through which geographic

proximity is translated into support for the so-called

hometown candidates is the subject of recent scholarship.

Some contend that voters put aside other allegiances to

support local candidates (Kawai and Watanabe 2013),

while others suggest that hometown candidates increase

the likelihood people turn out to vote in the election

(Bhatti and Hansen 2016). This paper contributes to this

latter explanation, demonstrating that candidates draw

increased numbers of local voters to the poll and that

some potential voters are more likely to turn out than

others.

This study builds on previous scholarship in two prin-

ciple ways. First, we use novel data: the voter rolls and

histories of Georgia and Ohio during the 2018 guberna-

torial elections. These administrative data allow us to

examine every registered voter in a state, their history of

906202PRQXXX10.1177/1065912920906202Political Research QuarterlyBaumann et al.

research-article2020

1Florida Southern College, Lakeland, USA

2The University of Mississippi, University, USA

3California State University, Dominguez Hills, Carson, USA

Corresponding Author:

Jonathan Winburn, Department of Political Science, University of

Mississippi, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS 38677, USA.

Email: jwinburn@olemiss.edu

What Are Friends for? The Effect of

Geographic Proximity on Primary

Turnout in Gubernatorial Elections

Zachary D. Baumann1, Jonathan Winburn2, Salvatore James Russo3,

and Mohammed Shariful Islam2

Abstract

“Friends and neighbors” voting is the tendency of candidates to earn a higher than expected share of the vote in their

home counties and states. This hometown effect has been witnessed across an array of elected offices and time periods,

prompting researchers to examine how local candidates impact voters’ turnout decisions and electoral choices. This

paper focuses on the effect of hometown candidates on turnout using voter rolls and histories from Ohio and Georgia

during the 2018 gubernatorial primary elections. These administrative data allow us to observe the decisions of all

registered voters in both of these contests along with, importantly, their prior turnout history. We find a consistent

relationship between the presence of a hometown candidate and turnout decisions; however, this effect is conditional

on voters’ previous vote histories in primaries. The effect is strongest among those who occasionally vote in elections,

smaller for those who habitually vote, and negligible for those who have never participated before. These results

contribute to our understanding of how the presence of local candidates translates into support for their campaigns,

and provide evidence that the size of this effect is not the same for all voters.

Keywords

gubernatorial elections, voter turnout, political geography, primary elections