Hit the right target! The Role of Issue Saliency among a Party's Potential Voters as a Determinant of the Party's Issue Emphasis in Switzerland

Abstract

Issues matter in party competition. Therefore, the issue emphasis strategy of parties plays an important role during a campaign. Scholars disagree about the factors that explain strategies. Some argue that parties “ride-the-wave” and emphasize issues that are important for the public. Others argue that parties care about the issue priorities of their voters. Between these two theories, I argue that parties care about their potential voters, which means that issue priorities among potential voters have an impact on the issue emphasis of parties. The more important an issue is among this group, the more a party will emphasize this issue. To test this hypothesis, I use the panel survey of the Swiss Election Study Selects and the Année Politique Suisse data on newspaper ads. The findings from a multilevel zero-inflated negative binomial regression suggest that the issue saliency among the potential voters has a positive impact on the issue emphasis of parties.