Concept and sources
Cain and colleagues (1987) defined the personal vote as support rooted in a candidate's qualities, record and constituency service, distinct from support driven by party or national conditions. Fenno (1978) observed how members build trust at home, and Fiorina (1977) argued that legislators win votes by resolving constituents' problems with the bureaucracy.
Measurement
Ansolabehere and colleagues (2000) compared newly added and continuing voters after redistricting to estimate the share of incumbency advantage that comes from the personal vote. This design is widely used to separate candidate effects from party effects.
Electoral systems and incentives
Carey and Shugart (1995) ranked electoral systems by ballot control, vote pooling, vote type and district magnitude, arguing that closed party lists weaken personal-vote incentives. Shugart and colleagues (2005) showed that candidates with local roots fare better under open-list PR, and André and colleagues (2015) found that electoral vulnerability mediates legislators' constituency effort, linking to research on electoral system effects.
FAQ
- What is the personal vote in simple terms?
- Votes given because people like the candidate personally, not because of the party.
- Under which electoral systems does it matter most?
- It matters more where candidates stand out individually, such as single-member districts or open-list proportional representation.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26
References
- Cain, B., Ferejohn, J., & Fiorina, M. (1987). The personal vote: Constituency service and electoral independence. Harvard University Press. The book that defined the personal vote.
- Fenno, R. F., Jr. (1978). Home style: House members in their districts. Little, Brown. How members cultivate trust at home.
- Fiorina, M. P. (1977). The case of the vanishing marginals: The bureaucracy did it. American Political Science Review, 71(1), 177–181. Casework as a source of the personal vote.
- Carey, J. M., & Shugart, M. S. (1995). Incentives to cultivate a personal vote: A rank ordering of electoral formulas. Electoral Studies, 14(4), 417–439. Ranks electoral systems by personal-vote incentives.
- Ansolabehere, S., Snyder, J. M., Jr., & Stewart, C., III. (2000). Old voters, new voters, and the personal vote: Using redistricting to measure the incumbency advantage. American Journal of Political Science, 44(1), 17–34. Directly estimates the personal vote.
- Shugart, M. S., Valdini, M. E., & Suominen, K. (2005). Looking for locals: Voter information demands and personal vote-earning attributes of legislators under proportional representation. American Journal of Political Science, 49(2), 437–449. Local roots matter under PR.
- André, A., Depauw, S., & Martin, S. (2015). Electoral systems and legislators' constituency effort: The mediating effect of electoral vulnerability. Comparative Political Studies, 48(4), 464–496. Electoral vulnerability mediates constituency effort.