How the Electoral College Influences Campaigns and Policy: The Probability of Being Florida
通过构建并估计概率投票模型，分析美国总统候选人如何在各州分配资源以最大化胜选概率，发现实际竞选活动与模型高度吻合，并探讨了直接普选的影响。
This paper analyzes how US presidential candidates should allocate resources across states to maximize the probability of winning the election, by developing and estimating a probabilistic-voting model of political competition under the Electoral College system. Actual campaigns act in close agreement with the model. There is a 0.9 correlation between equilibrium and actual presidential campaign visits across states, both in 2000 and 2004. The paper shows how presidential candidate attention is affected by the states' number of electoral votes, forecasted state-election outcomes, and forecast uncertainty. It also analyzes the effects of a direct national popular vote for president.