In first-past-the-post systems, voters should prefer local candidates for all sorts of reasons. From a rational choice perspective, you could argue that local candidates should, on average, more similar to their constituency in socio-economic terms and therefore more likely to represent their interests. A more socio-psychological-minded explanation would refer to shared ideological traits, positive stereotypes and collective identities. Or you could argue that local candidates are simply better known and have more opportunities for canvassing. Either way, even your granny knew that local is better when it comes to politics.

Only that she could never prove this assertion, while we can. Almost two years after the event, Political Geographyhas accepted our paper on the effect of (driving) distance between English mainstream candidates and their voters in the 2010 General Election. Controlling for incumbency, socio-economic distance and pre-campaign feeling towards the major parties, we demonstrate that physical distance (derived from candidates’ addresses and the centroid of their prospective voters’ neighbourhood) has a small but politically relevant effect. And yes, this is a brilliant start to this week!

Update: I have moved the preprint to a separate page. You can access the PDF, replication data etc. by clicking on the links below.