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Trump, Condorcet and Borda: Voting paradoxes in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries

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  • Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter
Abstract
The organization of US presidential elections makes them potentially vulnerable to the “voting paradoxes” identified by social choice theorists but rarely documented in real-world elections. Using polling data from the 2016 Republican presidential primaries we identify two possible cases: Early in the pre-primary (2015) a cyclical majority may have existed in Republican voters’ preferences between Bush, Cruz and Walker. Furthermore, later polling data (January-March 2016) suggests that while Trump (who achieved less than 50% of the total Republican primary vote) was the Plurality Winner, he could have been beaten in pairwise contests by at least one other candidate and may have been the Condorcet Loser. The cases confirm the empirical relevance of the theoretical voting paradoxes and the importance of voting procedures.

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  • Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter, 2018. "Trump, Condorcet and Borda: Voting paradoxes in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 29-35.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:poleco:v:55:y:2018:i:c:p:29-35
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ejpoleco.2017.10.003
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    Cited by:

    1. Niklas Potrafke, 2018. "Government ideology and economic policy-making in the United States—a survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 174(1), pages 145-207, January.
    2. Wesley H. Holliday & Eric Pacuit, 2020. "Axioms for Defeat in Democratic Elections," Papers 2008.08451, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.
    3. Darmann, Andreas & Grundner, Julia & Klamler, Christian, 2019. "Evaluative voting or classical voting rules: Does it make a difference? Empirical evidence for consensus among voting rules," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 59(C), pages 345-353.
    4. Maciel, Marcelo Veloso, 2024. "Was Bolsonaro’s 2018 electoral victory an institutional accident?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    5. Mehdi Feizi & Rasoul Ramezanian & Saeed Malek Sadati, 2020. "Borda paradox in the 2017 Iranian presidential election: empirical evidence from opinion polls," Economics of Governance, Springer, vol. 21(2), pages 101-113, June.
    6. Wesley H. Holliday & Eric Pacuit, 2021. "Axioms for defeat in democratic elections," Journal of Theoretical Politics, , vol. 33(4), pages 475-524, October.
    7. Wesley H. Holliday & Eric Pacuit, 2023. "Split Cycle: a new Condorcet-consistent voting method independent of clones and immune to spoilers," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 197(1), pages 1-62, October.
    8. Igersheim, Herrade & Durand, François & Hamlin, Aaron & Laslier, Jean-François, 2022. "Comparing voting methods: 2016 US presidential election," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    9. Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter & Duminski, Emily & Horndrup, Søren Nikolai, 2023. "Demokratiets vilkårlighed: En analyse af forekomsten af valgparadokser ved tre folketingsvalg [The arbitrariness of democracy: An analysis of the occurrence of voting paradoxes in three Danish parl," MPRA Paper 118922, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Kurrild-Klitgaard, Peter, 2019. "Var det fortsat ”the economy, stupid!” i 2016 og 2018? [Was it still "the economy, stupid!" in 2016 and 2018?]," MPRA Paper 97297, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Salvatore Barbaro & Anna-Sophie Kurella & Maike Roth, 2024. "Electoral outcomes versus voters’ preferences: On the different tales the data can tell," Working Papers 2412, Gutenberg School of Management and Economics, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    D71; D72; Social choice; Condorcet paradox; Borda Paradox; US presidential election 2016; Jeb Bush; Chris Christie; Ted Cruz; John Kasich; Marco Rubio; Donald Trump; Scott Walker; Voting system;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • D7 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making
    • D71 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Social Choice; Clubs; Committees; Associations
    • D72 - Microeconomics - - Analysis of Collective Decision-Making - - - Political Processes: Rent-seeking, Lobbying, Elections, Legislatures, and Voting Behavior

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