Is Some Politics Still Local? Voter Preferences for Local Candidates

Abstract Previous literature has demonstrated electoral advantages for candidates with backgrounds in the communities they represent, even amidst the trends of partisan polarization and the nationalization of elections. Here, we consider voter preferences for local candidates using a broader range of methods, jurisdictions, time periods, and populations than has previously been utilized. Our results leverage a survey experiment presenting respondents with pairs of fictional open-seat U.S. Senate candidates with varying degrees of local backgrounds. Voters consistently responded more favorably to locally-rooted candidates across different states. We also present novel evidence that local candidate effects are due largely to voters crossing party lines, and that the parties are asymmetrical in their responses to localism and carpetbagging, with Democrats benefitting from local ties more than Republicans. Observational data on real-life Senate candidates from 1960 to 2020 largely mirror our main experimental findings. Together, these findings demonstrate that local connections matter in more nuanced ways than have been previously considered.