ABSTRACT
Candidate choices are characterized by a more personal and intricate decision-making process compared to party choices. In this more complex choice, not only substantive evaluations but also perceived competences and the personal characteristics of candidates can affect voters’ choice of candidates. In this chapter, we present voters subjective evaluation of what matters for their choice of candidate and how these have developed over the last five latest parliamentary elections. We then move on to explore which type of voters are prone to use certain types of heuristics in their decision-making process. Here, we use register data on candidates in combination with stated candidate choice in the FNES 2011 and 2019. With this multifaceted approach, this chapter contributes to a better understanding of voter-candidate dynamics in a complex vote context.
