Great minds think alike? Ideological congruence between party members and leadership candidates

A central premise in representative democracy is that people vote for the party or candidate offering the best fit with their policy preferences. While central in studies on general elections, ideological congruence is underexposed in studies on intraparty elections. Our research maps one-to-one congruence between individual party members and their preferred candidate in a party leadership contest, and investigates whether members with high political sophistication and strong party linkage are more likely to cast a congruent vote. The analysis is based on original survey data collected among m... Mehr ...