Localism in Presidential Elections: The Home State Advantage

Abstract

According to the folk wisdom of American politics, a presidential candidate has a vote advantage in his home state. While this proposition has intuitive appeal, it has never been tested. We evaluated the evidence, and found that presidential candidates actually do have a home state advantage. Further, in spite of the nationalization of certain other political processes, this local advantage has exhibited no diminution across time. Finally, the magnitude of the home state advantage for a particular candidate is rather predictable, depending especially on the size of the state population.