Primary Competition & Candidate Distortion

In many multi-stage selection environments, we expect the behaviors that help candidates to succeed early to also improve their chances in later stages. For example, the skills that carry a job candidate through initial interviews typically increase their likelihood of success in final rounds. In political selection, however, candidates often advance through primary elections using campaign strategies that can harm their viability in the general election. This paper develops a model of two-stage electoral competition to explain how primary competition can distort candidate behavior.

Candidates face a tradeoff between securing a nomination in a competitive primary and preserving their strength in the general election. In the model, this tradeoff arises through campaign decisions - such as how effort and resources are allocated across stages - that may improve primary success while imposing costs in the general elections. Preliminary results show that stronger candidates are the most prone to such distortions, as competition in the primary increases the return to actions that prioritize nomination over general-election performance. This effect persists even as general-election costs increase. These results suggest that primary elections may weaken candidate selections even when high-quality candidates win nominations, by shaping how they compete before ever reaching the general electorate.