Inside the minds of voters
Any analysis of exit polling reveals a welter of numbers whose meaning remains slightly elusive, with issues or candidate characteristics described as “very important,” “somewhat important,” or “not important at all” by voters. But it is not always clear how these findings fit together.Now, a new paper co-written by an MIT political scientist suggests a way to assess the relative impact of several factors at once, using a method known as “conjoint analysis” that is not currently employed in political polling.The method behind conjoint analysis is fairly simple: Respondents in public opinion surveys are given hypothetical matchups between two candidates whose characteristics — say, religion, wealth, ethnic background — are randomly altered in the survey. Given a representative sample of voters making choices based on these hypothetical matchups, it is possible to determine the relative weight the electorate gives to any of these candidate characteristics. Does religion matter more than...