The preferences of the electors and the importance of the Mexican 2006 election campaigns

This paper presents the econometric results that validate the relevance of an election campaign on the elector’s preferences change among the candidates. The preferences are defined from the declared voting intentions from two rounds of an enquiry panel on the 2006 Mexican presidential elections. The estimated models support the hypothesis that local influence (political discussion networks) and the media influence (television’s audience, debates, negative campaigns) have a statistically significant impact on the voter’s preferences. Furthermore, it is shown that the impact on the change of the preferences is differentiated, whereas the social networks, media and partisan ideology/identity influence the very different forms for the adherents of the various candidates