Making the other side mad: How out-group distaste benefits less competent candidates

I present a formal model of candidate evaluation in a context where voters within some group or political party learn information about to what extent various in-group candidates (such as a slate of primary candidates) are disliked by an out-group or opposing party. Thus, a voter’s candidate evaluation is based in part on how they process information about which of their own candidates provoke particularly strong distaste from the out-group. I show that exposure to information about out-group distaste can cause voters to make misleading inferences about candidate characteristics, causing them to sometimes systematically prefer lower competence candidates. These effects are stronger for certain kinds of low-information voters, and for more ideologically motivated voters. The model can thus explain under what conditions voters will support politicians who particularly aggrieve the opposition. This can also create secondary incentives for politicians to signal incompetence.