THE ELEMENTS OF CANDIDATE REPUTATION - THE EFFECT OF RECORD AND CREDIBILITY ON OPTIMAL SPATIAL LOCATION

We build a model of two-candidate elections in which voters judge candidates on the basis of how well their announced campaign positions correspond with their records. Given different records, the candidates will adopt different campaign positions. Two types of reputational advantage are analyzed: proximity of the candidate's record to the median voter's ideal point, and the range of campaign positions that a candidate may adopt and still retain some credibility with the voters.