Attentiveness in elections with impressionable voters

We propose a model of attentiveness in elections with impressionable voters under three electoral rules: plurality, approval voting, and negative plurality. Voters’ conduct is determined by their attentiveness and impressions of candidates. We show that attentiveness is as important as voters’ preferences for the outcome of the election. Specifically, we show that candidates benefit from increased voter attention under all rules other than negative plurality. We then consider exogenous and endogenous attentiveness and show how our model can account for momentum effects in primaries, where candidates rise quickly and then fade away. Finally we consider the case of news coverage tone and show that under plurality rule e.g., primary elections, candidates may benefit from frequent news coverage even if the news is negative.