Parties dominate the registration of candidates, leaders connect better with the electorate

Abstract

By analyzing mayoral elections in Brazil between 2000 and 2020, we aim to identify the role of political parties and party leaders in structuring the electoral process. We evaluate two stages of the elections. Focusing on how candidates are defined for the election, we verified a stronger presence of the same parties that launched candidacies in two consecutive elections. Adopting the same criteria to assess the continuity of the same leaders, the dropout rate is higher. When voting in the second election, voters evaluate the parties and leaderships that launch their candidacies in different constellations. Results show that leaderships manage to retain voters more than political parties. The study provides empirical evidence of the degree of election partisanship and personalization in Brazil. It also contributes to the debate on conceptual definitions, on the elaboration of survey designs and the operationalization of indicators regarding personalism in politics.