Abstract
The state election in Lower Saxony in October 2017 walked in the shadows of the preceding election on the federal level. In light of both campaigns temporal proximity, this study investigates the development of political attitudes towards the federal and the state level and their relative influence on voter behavior in Lower Saxony. We make use of a multiwave panel survey of 1,346 eligible voters in Lower Saxony, which was carried out in the framework of the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES). Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses show that a significant minority of respondents based their voting decision in the state election on state-specific considerations. State-specific attitudes varied strongly and to a large extent independently of attitudes towards parties and politicians at the federal level and went hand in hand with changes in voting intentions. The Lower Saxony SPD, in particular, was able to promote the popularity of its leading candidate, thereby leaving behind the CDU at the ballot boxes.
Cite
@article{929151c1-07b4-3d45-bd9b-a85b4f3e150e,
ISSN = {03401758, 18622534},
URL = {https://www.jstor.org/stable/26779450},
abstract = {The state election in Lower Saxony in October 2017 walked in the shadows of the preceding election on the federal level. In light of both campaigns temporal proximity, this study investigates the development of political attitudes towards the federal and the state level and their relative influence on voter behavior in Lower Saxony. We make use of a multiwave panel survey of 1,346 eligible voters in Lower Saxony, which was carried out in the framework of the German Longitudinal Election Study (GLES). Cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses show that a significant minority of respondents based their voting decision in the state election on state-specific considerations. State-specific attitudes varied strongly and to a large extent independently of attitudes towards parties and politicians at the federal level and went hand in hand with changes in voting intentions. The Lower Saxony SPD, in particular, was able to promote the popularity of its leading candidate, thereby leaving behind the CDU at the ballot boxes.},
author = {Harald Schoen and Alexander Wuttke and Agatha Kratz and Maria Preißinger},
journal = {Zeitschrift für Parlamentsfragen},
number = {1},
pages = {22--39},
publisher = {Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH},
title = {Ein Umschwung in den letzten Wochen: Befunde einer mehrwelligen Wiederholungsbefragung zur niedersächsischen Landtagswahl 2017},
urldate = {2024-04-30},
volume = {49},
year = {2018}
}