# Voter Priming Campaigns: Strategies, Equilibria, and Algorithms

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.13380 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.13380/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 7 of its 31 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 17 Dec 2024.

## Builds on (most cited first, 7 of 7)

- [Cognitive Effects in Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.14337/) (2023)
- [Ad Delivery Algorithms: The Hidden Arbiters of Political Messaging](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.04255/) (2019)
- [Complexity of Manipulation, Bribery, and Campaign Management in Bucklin and Fallback Voting](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1307.7322/) (2013)
- [Campaign Management under Approval-Driven Voting Rules](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1501.00387/) (2015)
- [Voting and Bribing in Single-Exponential Time](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.01852/) (2018)
- [Manipulating Elections by Selecting Issues](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.12472/) (2019)
- [Election Control by Manipulating Issue Significance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.09786/) (2020)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Issue salience is a major determinant in voters' decisions. Candidates and political parties campaign to shift salience to their advantage - a process termed priming. We study the dynamics, strategies and equilibria of campaign spending for voter priming in multi-issue multi-party settings. We consider both parliamentary elections, where parties aim to maximize their share of votes, and various settings for presidential elections, where the winner takes all. For parliamentary elections, we show that pure equilibrium spending always exists and can be computed in time linear in the number of voters. For two parties and all settings, a spending equilibrium exists such that each party invests only in a single issue, and an equilibrium can be computed in time that is polynomial in the number of issues and linear in the number of voters. We also show that in most presidential settings no equilibrium exists. Additional properties of optimal campaign strategies are also studied.