Two Brown economists, Brian Knight and Nathan Schiff, have found that early state primary voters enjoy 20 times the influence of the average primary voter.
And how exactly do you quantify that, you ask? From the abstract:
In the econometric model, voters are uncertain over candidate quality, and voters in late states attempt to infer the information held by those in early states from voting returns. Candidates experience momentum effects when their performance in early states exceeds expectations. The empirical application focuses on the responses of daily polling data to the release of voting returns in the 2004 presidential primary. We find that Kerry benefited from surprising wins in early states and took votes away from Dean, who held a strong lead prior to the beginning of the primary season. The voting weights implied by the estimated model demonstrate that early voters have up to 20 times the inuence of late voters in the selection of candidates, demonstrating a signicant departure from the ideal of one person, one vote."
Read the full paper here.
Hat tip:
Greg Mankiw
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