A Hotelling-Downs Framework for Party Nominees

We present a model for the strategic selection of party nominees, where competing groups choose their representatives based on the expected electoral returns. Technically, we look at a generalisation of the Hotelling-Downs model, where each nominee has a predefined position on the political spectrum and attracts the closest voters compared to all other representatives. Within this framework we explore the algorithmic properties of Nash equilibria, which are not guaranteed to exist even in two party competitions. We show that finding a Nash equilibrium is NP-complete for the general case. However, if there are only two competing parties, this can be achieved in linear time. The results readily extend to games with restricted positioning options for the players involved, such as facility location and Voronoi games.

Authors

• Paul Harrenstein
• Grzegorz Lisowski University of Groningen
• Ramanujan Sridharan University of Warwick
• Paolo Turrini University of Warwick

Keywords

• Hotelling-Downs Games
• Strategic Candidacy
• Primaries