What is strategic voting in simple terms?

When your favorite candidate seems unlikely to win, you vote for the best of the viable candidates so your vote is not wasted.

How common is strategic voting?

Measurement studies find it is limited to a minority of voters, but in close districts it can be enough to change who wins.

Strategic Voting

🏛️ Politics & Public Administration By CampusDown Wiki Editorial Team Last updated October 27, 2026

Strategic voting is the behavior of voters who, judging that their most preferred candidate or party has little chance of winning, vote for a viable second choice to avoid wasting their vote. It contrasts with sincere voting, which follows true preferences, and is considered a key pathway through which electoral systems shape party systems.

Contents

1. Concept and origins
2. Theory: strategic coordination
3. Measurement and evidence
4. FAQ
5. References

Concept and origins

Duverger (1954) pointed to a psychological effect in plurality elections: voters who see a vote for a third party as wasted shift to the less disliked of the two major parties. This is a main mechanism behind Duverger's law. Strategic voting differs from sincere voting because voters weigh not only their preferences but also expectations about how others will vote.

Theory: strategic coordination

Cox (1997) proposed that with district magnitude M, strategic voting pushes the effective number of candidates toward M+1, a result that holds when voters share the same polling information. Myatt (2007) built a game-theoretic model with uncertainty about candidate support and showed that strategic voting may produce only partial coordination rather than full two-party convergence.

Measurement and evidence

Abramson and colleagues (1992) measured preferences and perceived viability in the 1988 US presidential primaries and showed that sophisticated voting occurred. Alvarez and Nagler (2000) proposed a model for multiparty elections combining preferences and competitiveness, and Blais and colleagues (2001) estimated that strategic voting in Canada was a few percent of all votes but could change outcomes in close districts. Conversely, sincere voting tends to rise in low-stakes contests such as second-order elections.

FAQ

What is strategic voting in simple terms?: When your favorite candidate seems unlikely to win, you vote for the best of the viable candidates so your vote is not wasted.
How common is strategic voting?: Measurement studies find it is limited to a minority of voters, but in close districts it can be enough to change who wins.

Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26

References

Duverger, M. (1954). Political parties: Their organization and activity in the modern state. Methuen. The psychological effect.
Abramson, P. R., Aldrich, J. H., Paolino, P., & Rohde, D. W. (1992). "Sophisticated" voting in the 1988 presidential primaries. American Political Science Review, 86(1), 55–69. Sophisticated voting in primaries.
Cox, G. W. (1997). Making votes count: Strategic coordination in the world's electoral systems. Cambridge University Press. Strategic coordination.
Alvarez, R. M., & Nagler, J. (2000). A new approach for modelling strategic voting in multiparty elections. British Journal of Political Science, 30(1), 57–75. Modelling strategic voting.
Blais, A., Nadeau, R., Gidengil, E., & Nevitte, N. (2001). Measuring strategic voting in multiparty plurality elections. Electoral Studies, 20(3), 343–352. Measuring its extent.
Myatt, D. P. (2007). On the theory of strategic voting. The Review of Economic Studies, 74(1), 255–281. Game-theoretic analysis.
Calvert, R. L., & Ferejohn, J. A. (1983). Coattail voting in recent presidential elections. American Political Science Review, 77(2), 407–419. Linked vote choices.

Reports and materials that use this theory (Korean)

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Duverger's LawDuverger's law explained: why single-member plurality elections tend to produce two-party systems and proportional representation multiparty systems, the mechanical and psychological effects, Riker's and Cox's refinements, exceptions such as India and Canada.🏛️ Politics & Public Administration Paradox of VotingWhat the paradox of voting is: one vote almost never decides an election yet many people vote, plus Downs's expected-utility calculus, the D term, minimax regret, game-theoretic models, altruistic voting and field experiments on turnout.🏛️ Politics & Public Administration Median Voter TheoremWhat the median voter theorem states, Black's proof, Hotelling's location model and Downs's two-party convergence, cycling in multidimensional space (McKelvey), size-of-government models, empirical evidence and critiques.🏛️ Politics & Public Administration Second-Order Election ModelWhat the second-order election model is: in low-stakes elections such as European Parliament or local contests, turnout is low, governing parties lose and small parties gain.🏛️ Politics & Public Administration

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This article was last updated on October 27, 2026. It is based on widely recognized original works and textbooks; when citing it in a paper, please check the original sources listed in the references.