Game Theory in Presidential Elections
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/game-theory-us-presidential-election-andreas-fellner
http://www.gametheoryacademy.org/tag/presidential-election/
Game Theory plays an important role in how candidates campaign in the presidential election. It is the reason why candidates focus more on swing states with higher electoral votes than states that trend in consistent directions. Andreas Fellner explains that if a candidate won Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, District of Columbia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming by just one vote in each state, he or she could win the general election with only 22% of the popular vote. We can use game theory to explain the choices of candidates to campaign in Florida instead of New York, and the decisions they make in how they invest their campaign funds. We are asked if a candidate (Bush) has a 70% chance of winning in Florida and far less of a chance of winning Ohio, which state should he visit? We are given the following example that shows us the probabilities of who will win the vote in Ohio if both candidates visit Florida, Ohio, or if each one visits either state alone.
We can use these percentages to explain why candidates choose to campaign in certain states instead of others. In this example, Bush’s dominant strategy is to visit Ohio, because regardless of what Kerry does, visiting Ohio will increase Bush’s chance of winning Ohio, and as is he is very likely to win Florida, he can be less concerned with visiting that state.
Furthermore, candidates can use game theory to predict the moves of their competitors in order to make the best decisions to ensure their highest possible chance of winning. If Kerry knows that Bush’s dominant strategy is to campaign in Ohio, he can predict this choice and decide to campaign in Ohio as well, to decrease Bush’s chance of winning. In this case, the Nash Equilibrium is for both candidates to campaign in Ohio.