Mode of candidacy, electoral prospects, and the ideological deviation of candidacy-seeking politicians from their party leadership

Politicians who seek their parties’ nomination as candidates for public office start communicating their ideological profile to the selectorate months before the party decides on who will run as candidates. However, some politicians tend to steer away from their party leadership, while others stick closer to the party line. We argue that not only the mode of candidacy but one’s expected chances of winning the election during the candidate selection period are defining factors in understanding why some candidates deviate further from their party leadership position than others. We use novel data on the degree of intra-party competition among the main German parties in all 299 electoral districts and on the ideological positions of candidates, measured using their Twitter statements in the run-up to the 2021 Bundestag election, to evaluate our expectations. In line with existing studies, we find that candidates who seek only their party’s nomination via lists deviate less from party leadership than candidates who seek nomination as a district candidate. In contrast to our expectations, candidates who seek their nomination in an electoral district do not deviate more ideologically from their party when they can expect to win the district seat on election day based on published polls during the candidate selection period.