Repeated Elections With Asymmetric Information

We model an infinite sequence of elections with no term limits. In each period a challenger with privately known preferences is randomly drawn from the electorate to run against the incumbent, and the winner chooses a policy outcome in a one-dimensional issue space. Our first theorem establishes the existence of an equilibrium in which the median voter is decisive: an incumbent wins reelection if and only if his most recent policy choice gives the median voter a payoff at least as high as he would expect from a challenger. In equilibrium, politicians are divided into three groups, according to the ideal points: centrists, moderates, and extremists. Only centrists and moderates are reelected, though moderates must compromise their ideological preferences to satisfy the median voter. The equilibrium is symmetric, stationary, and the behavior of voters is consistent with both retrospective and prospective voting. Our second theorem is that, in fact, it is the only equilibrium possessing these properties