What Factors Influence Elections?

[Verlumino]

In the next update, I am going to be making elections more complex by adding more factors that influence the election. Some possible factors include: candidate age, ancestry, incumbency, experience (political points), and traits. If there are any other factors that influence a voters decision, please let me know.

Also, if there are any factors that influence voter turnout (either decreasing or increasing), please let me know. Thanks. I look forward to seeing your suggestions.

[Acedotspade]

Just some ideas:
Debate performance, candidate trust, news coverage, media bias (relations with media), weather on election day (rain reduces turnout), the state's level of absentee ballots or voting-by-mail (A place like Colorado has massive voter turnout with universal vote by mail), is election day a holiday, a bit of randomness, background (If the state has a lot of white collar workers, a businessman would do better with those voters than a teacher).
Traits definitely should have a big impact though.

[JCameron]

Looks at what positions/committees people hold - rural voters will probs hold thier reps in higer regard if they are on the rural affairs committee etc

In primaries voters often consider the electoral chances of the candidate in the general so may nominate a more moderate candidate then thier politics - this may also help with the over representation of Progressives in the democratic party

Also candidates gain name recognition far too easily, it takes years to build high name recognition.

[Gru]

Maybe state government approval ratings that might buck the state's partisan lean? Like how Kansas is a red state but their Republican governor's very low approval ratings led to them electing a Democrat in 2018.

[CharlieRouth]

One major word, Dynasties, a popular family or former popular governor changes it all. If you add a feature where names help in primaries and general elections, please somehow give us an indication they're part of a dynasty and possibly allow us to make dynasties for long term games.

Also obviously incumbency advantage, it should be measured by incumbent popularity and traits, here's a kind-of well thought out equation:

Maine's 2nd district -

Incumbent: John Doe

Term: 1

Base Incumbency Advantage: (real life average)
3.00%

Trait:
Rude
-.25%

Trait:
Charismatic:
+.75

Trait:
Non-Controversial: (Votes pretty relative to what the district supports)
+.5%

Approval:
58%:
+.6% (+.2 for every extra % after 55%, -.2 for every extra % before 45%)


Trait:
Freshman:
.35% (Given to newly elected incumbents for the first term in that position only)

Nationalization:
-.4% (If the race starts to earn a lot of attention/money from outside groups it gets nationalized, and .1% is earned toward the main partisanship of the district, so for example if the district is ME-02 like in this case, it'd subtract .4% from the advantage due to it being 4% to the right, however if it was a district like MN-03 which is 6% to the left, it would give the incumbent +.6)

Total:
4.55% Incumbency Advantage

(Others traits or bonuses)

Trait:
Old Guard:
+6% (Given to incumbents who maintain a 60%+ approval rating for over 10 terms and to them as long as they hold the position)

Trait:
Bigoted (Racist): (Rare trait or can be replaced with something else)
-8%

Trait:
Controversial:
-3% (Votes way too left or right of the district, creates controversial legislation, etc)

[Andyofdoom]

A factor to consider is local issues and events. Local races can become referendums on single issues. Sometimes the issue isn't even something whoever wins the election can do much about. A big factory closure is one example, it's likely to decrease turnout as people feel disillusioned. Another example can be building a new runway at a local airport (turnout around said airport increases as people there don't like it). I suspect crime is a factor, high crime areas mean people like to stay at home which reduces turnout.

Weather can have an impact, but it's not huge and a good ground game can counteract it though. It can be magnified by up ballot and down ballot events. For example, if the Presidential election is a blow out, turnout on the west coast may be a bit lower which could help a local candidate with intense supporters against a more moderate candidate with broader appeal.

The biggest driver of turnout is how well the ground work has been done, accurate voter targeting, systems to get low-propensity voters to get them to the polls as well as numbers and skill of volunteers. Plus registration is important too, getting people enrolled to vote early.

Likewise who can vote is important, prisoner voting can have an impact.

My feeling is weather doesn't normally change an outcome by more than 0.01% (so decisive in Florida :P).

Turnout if one party doesn't bother in a state (Michigan 2016) can be much more decisive.

I'd model it in terms of demographic propensity to vote and intensity of support for a particular candidate. For example, a moderate candidate can be boosted by another more base focused candidate on the same ballot turning out people to vote for them, while a moderate may benefit from ticket splitting. Generally moderates are better at winning high propensity voters and base focused candidates are better at getting people out to vote.

You could give each policy a weighting for both propensity and intensity then magnify it by how salient an issue is, how local it is and who else is on the same ballot.

In terms of using GOTV in the game, it's about how much time and money goes into it and how well it is focused, IRL it's normally done on a polling place level, but for the game County level may do. I'd do GOTV as it's own tab like marketing with a map of the district (with one zone only for City Council, Mayor and School board and State Rep). Throughout the campaign you can invest money and hours into building GOTV in particular counties (or particular demographics), part of it could be in which counties your offices are. Though perhaps demographic targeting makes more sense but modeling that is outside of my knowledge.

Hope that helps a little bit.

[rm03]

Would be neat to maybe include some metrics/ideas from here...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Keys_to_the_White_House

[SqueezleMcCheezle]

-endorsements from candidates who have dropped out
-adding more than just 1 or 2 candidates at the most really for any positions other than president
-people getting too annoyed if you play lots of ads like mike bloomberg did.
-voter recognition should drop if you lose the race and gain more if you win it.

Thats all I got.

[Josh]

-Percentage of how rural or urban an area is (for congress)

-Incumbents Popularity/Unpopularity

-National Wave--If a President is unpopular, then their party doesn't do as well as they could have

-Scandals

-If a candidate grew up in district/state for Congress vs. Being born and raised somewhere
else. (for congress)

-Endorsements from well-known politicians (especially for primaries)

[Jeylon98]

Foreign affairs at certain moments play key roles and supreme court picks can if they happen during a election and plus natural disasters.

[Jeylon98]

Also social media can influence too , the news cycle, celeb endorsements and also scandals at the lower level.

[HotPotato]

Credit to the earlier poster acedogcat for the base idea, but a long-term implementation that I'd like to see would be media, namely a Fox spinoff, an MSNBC spinoff, and a CNN kind of thing that for in game purposes at least reflects independent positions. Passing an increase to the minimum wage, for example, would get a light thumbs-up from MSNBC and CNN while Fox wouldn't really care because it's fairly uncontroversial in game (90/50/70 base support or thereabouts). However, be responsible for supporting universal healthcare, and now the media battle really begins which will have a much larger effect on voter enthusiasm (it has like 80% democrat but only 10% republican support or something like that base, if I remember correctly.) That way, the timing of media campaigns becomes more relevant and legislation you pass and support can come back to haunt you which are two very real factors that sway elections. It would also require more big-brain strategy on policy support than the relatively simple caucus juggling at present. Think a more robust version of the groups and PACs mechanics, but instead of donations, it directly affect popularity, turnout, enthusiasm, etc. I'd like to know what the rest of the community thinks and if Verlumino thinks this is achievable.

[Acedotspade]

Originally posted by HotPotato:

Credit to the earlier poster acedogcat for the base idea, but a long-term implementation that I'd like to see would be media, namely a Fox spinoff, an MSNBC spinoff, and a CNN kind of thing that for in game purposes at least reflects independent positions. Passing an increase to the minimum wage, for example, would get a light thumbs-up from MSNBC and CNN while Fox wouldn't really care because it's fairly uncontroversial in game (90/50/70 base support or thereabouts). However, be responsible for supporting universal healthcare, and now the media battle really begins which will have a much larger effect on voter enthusiasm (it has like 80% democrat but only 10% republican support or something like that base, if I remember correctly.) That way, the timing of media campaigns becomes more relevant and legislation you pass and support can come back to haunt you which are two very real factors that sway elections. It would also require more big-brain strategy on policy support than the relatively simple caucus juggling at present. Think a more robust version of the groups and PACs mechanics, but instead of donations, it directly affect popularity, turnout, enthusiasm, etc. I'd like to know what the rest of the community thinks and if Verlumino thinks this is achievable.

+1

[samevans23]

endorsements: from PACs, organisations, other politicians (current and former), local press

[JCameron]

How much attention you pay to your district during your term - maybe have a town hall event; forcing you to choose between fundraising, town hall and introducing laws

[Iskios]

Endorsements, something like the more political points someone has the more meaningful an endorsement is. Idk something like 1,000,000 points is 1%, that way it’s not game breaking but enough endorsements can change a race