Roadmap to victory: Boris Yel'tsin and the Russian presidential elections of 1996

Two specialists on the electoral geography of post-Soviet Russia analyze the spatial voting patterns of the first and second (runoff) rounds of the Russian presidential elections of June and July 1996, assessing the degree to which the distribution of the vote among regions contributed to a Yel'tsin victory. They also examine social and economic correlates of the vote for the two principal contenders-Boris Yel'tsin and Gennadiy Zyuganov-in both rounds of the elections and investigate patterns of vote switching from losing candidates in the first round of the elections (e.g., Lebed, Zhirinovskiy, Yavlinskiy) to the two remaining candidates.