Running Towards Rankings: Ranked Choice Voting’s Impact on Candidate Entry and Descriptive Representation

Abstract

This research project investigates whether one of the purported benefits of Ranked Choice Voting (RCV) – an expanded candidate pool – has been realized in the cities where it has been implemented. Employing a difference-in-differences approach with matching, I find that any increase in the candidate pool size dissipates after several election cycles. Similarly, related benefits such as a higher quality and more diverse candidate pool are also temporary. As the first project to systematically examine whether and how RCV influences candidate entry in the US, this analysis questions some of the purported benefits of RCV as well as offers a comprehensive new resource for scholars and practitioners investigating the effects of RCV.

Keywords: Ranked Choice Voting, Matching, Candidate Entry, Difference-in-Differences, Descriptive Representation