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

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.