Young voters, older candidates and policy preferences

Evidence from two experiments

Bibliographic Data

ID6299247
AuthorsCharles Lees (0000-0002-3517-2211, City, University of London), Rodrigo Praino (0000-0001-9151-7707, Flinders University, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume45
Issue2
Pages278-298
Publication date2024-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Political Science Review (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0192-5121 • E-ISSN: 1460-373X
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/01925121221139544
OpenAlexW4313255226
LanguageEN
Citations received9
References cited47

Recent elections around the world have seen young voters come out in large numbers to support young leaders running for office, such as New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern in October 2020. At the same time, however, young voters have shown strong support for relatively older candidates such as Jeremy Corbyn in the United Kingdom and Bernie Sanders in the United States. While the former is consistent with the descriptive representation literature, the latter is not. This article deploys an experimental design involving 1000 young participants to analyse young voter support for older candidates. We find that young voters are significantly more likely to support older candidates if they are aware that these candidates champion general left-wing policies, but the same is not true for young candidates. We also find that ceteris paribus younger voters do not prefer younger candidates to older candidates

Ceteris paribus · Champion · Demographic economics · Developmental psychology · Economics · Political science · Politics · Representation (politics · Voting · Young adult · Electoral Systems and Political Participation · Gender Politics and Representation · Law · Psychology · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts

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