Little is known about the evolution of electoral sentiment over the campaign cycle. How does
the outcome come into focus as the election cycle evolves? Do voters' preferences evolve in
a patterned and understandable way? What role does the election campaign play? In this
article, we address these issues. We translate general arguments about the role of
campaigns into a set of formal, statistical expectations. Then, we outline an empirical
analysis and examine poll results for the 15 US presidential elections between 1944 and�…

In presidential elections, do voters cast their ballots for the candidates whose platform and
positions best match their own? Or is the race for president of the United States come down
largely to who runs the most effective campaign? It'sa question those who study elections
have been considering for years with no clear resolution. In The Timeline of Presidential
Elections, Robert S. Erikson and Christopher Wlezien reveal for the first time how both
factors come into play. Erikson and Wlezien have amassed data from close to two thousand�…