Information Cascades in the GOP
This article discusses how information cascade plays a role in the current election, particularly with respect to the GOP. For several republican law makers, the endorsements have been switching around pretty frequently. At first, many were unsure about how legitimate Trump was in the running, so an endorsement for him was somewhat rarer. They care a lot about being correct in their endorsements so as to seem “prescient”. A large indicator for them when deciding who to support is how their peers are expected to vote. At that time, Trump was not the top choice and most people believed that maybe Jeb had the most backing, so they’d offer their support to him.
More recently, with the release of Trump’s tape showing him making lewd comments, the reverse began happening. Several Republicans withdrew their endorsements for him. But why does this happen? In short, once the first person actually withdraws their support, others who have had similar thoughts will believe that it is ok for them to do the same and this causes the “cascade”; as more and more start following, even more will think that this is the move. However, an interesting development occurred afterwards. Not long after these GOP legislators asked Trump to step down, many stated that they’d still vote for him. This happens because upon realizing that the party as a whole is still behind Trump, those who went against him (who might be worried about becoming an outcast of their party) will flip flop back to the other side in order to try and reverse their decision.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/10/why-republicans-are-flip-flopping-on-their-endorsements/503930/