Micromotives of Vote Switchers and Macrotransitions: The Case of the Immigration Issue in a Regional Earthquake Election in Germany 2018

Abstract Which issue-related motives underlie voters’ decision to switch parties at the polls? Do switchers stick newly chosen party, or do they oscillate in a short-term way intermediate elections? Relying on behavioral theory of elections, we assumed aspiration-based voting boundedly rational voters. We elicited and stay an open-ended survey question format identify individual dominant aspirational frame. traced respondents’ trajectories over three consecutive including two state (2013 2018) elections Bavaria (Germany) one German federal election (2017). focused most polarizing salient issues these namely immigration. The case reference is 2018 Bavarian election. Here, incumbent majoritarian center-right party Christian Social Union tried deter entry right-wing populist Alternative for Germany by adapting it immigration issue tone position. selected allows assessment impact issue-based adaptive behavior level choices. estimated direction number voter flows interelection sequences different lengths between types polls (federal state). Our transition estimates are based hybrid multinomial Dirichlet model, new technique integrating individual-level data official aggregate data. uncover substantial differences public.