A PLURALITY MAXIMIZING APPROACH TO THE ALLOCATION OF CAMPAIGN RESOURCES

ABSTRACT An important problem in the planning of political campaigns is the allocation of resources to precincts and other geographical voting units in order to maximize a candidate's plurality. Essentially, parties may increase candidate plurality by engaging in registration drives, midcampaign activities such as canvassing and candidate appearances, and get‐out‐the‐vote drives. Based on previous work which has related voter response to party identification, the authors develop a model for the optimal allocation of campaign resources to these activities. The computational feasibility of the solution procedure is made possible by a decomposition across activities.