Voter Resonance to Candidate Characteristics in Municipal Elections

Topics: first-time candidacy; earlier candidacies for ´higher´ mandates, such as e.g. for the European Parliament or the Federal Parliament; number and length of political mandates held; length of party membership as well as party offices held and executive functions; active participation in citizen initiatives; scale of assumed voter orientation in voting (election of personalities versus list election and personal tie to election candidates versus political issues); expected number of seats of the party in the municipal council; expectation to achieve a seat oneself; satisfaction with personal list position; estimated proportion of votes for oneself in the total number of votes; characteristics of an ideal municipal council member and critical self-assessment regarding the same items (scale); self-assessment of training of political abilities and special knowledge; intended effort for special matters of local political concern; club memberships and honorary offices exercised there; extent of active participation in club meetings and public events; manner of preparation for a speech; feelings of uncertainty with a larger audience; preference for use of dialect; information on type and frequency of election campaign activities undertaken; assessment of the most effective election advertising; self-assessment of personal degree of familiarity as municipal council candidate and satisfaction with frequency of mention of name in the press; time invested in the election campaign and financial investment; local residency in the municipality; political activity of parents and grandparents; election campaign support from friends and acquaintances; self-assessment of political location in general and political location within one´s party on a left-right continuum; interest in a research report on this investigation; residential status; neighborhood contacts; preferred manner of clothing; religiousness; distance to place of work; company size; membership in a trade union.

Scales: democratic attitude; sociability. Also encoded were data from the official election statistics about performance of candidate or party in the municipal election 1980. Demography: sex; marital status; characteristics of spouse; number of children; religious denomination; frequency of church attendance; school education; occupation; employment; income; social origins.