Directional Cheap Talk in Electoral Campaigns

Can campaign communications credibly transmit information about candidates ’ pol-icy intentions? To answer this question, I develop and analyze a game-theoretic model of campaign communication in a two-candidate majority rule election with multidi-mensional policies. Candidate and voter preferences are private information and cam-paigns consist of both candidates sending cheap talk messages in order to commu-nicate information about their preferences. The game possesses equilibria involving informative campaign messages which reveal information about the directions of the candidates ’ ideal points from the center of the policy space but leave the voters uncer-tain about which candidate is more extreme