VOTER TARGETING AND POLICY DIVERGENCE

Abstract. We model electoral competition between two parties in a winner-take-all election. Bargaining between office motiv-ated candidates and policy motivated lobbies determines jointly the campaign contributions to the candidates and the policy pos-itions of the candidates. We use the model to examine why cam-paign spending in the United States has increased at the same time that politics has become more polarized. We find that more accurate targeting of campaign spending is the most likely cause for the joint increase in spending and polarization. Other factors that have an effect on polarization also feature an inverse relation between spending and polarization