Local Candidates, Place-Based Identities, and Electoral Success

Abstract While a large body of literature empirically documents an electoral advantage for local candidates, the exact mechanisms accounting this effect remain less clear. We integrate theories on political geography candidate-voter relations with socio-psychological accounts citizens’ attachment, arguing that citizens vote candidates from their own communities as expression place-based identity. To test our argument, we exploit unique feature German mixed-member system. identify causal candidates’ localness by relying within-electoral-district variation coupled geo-matching strategy level municipalities ( $$\hbox {N}=11175$$ N = 11175 ). The results show voters exhibit strong bias in favor even when they are not competitive. More than only expecting particularistic benefits representatives, appear to community express social