Electoral competition with ideologically biased voters

This paper studies pork barrel spending in a model where two symmetric parties compete for an electorate consisting of groups which have different ideological preferences. In equilibrium, party electoral promises decrease with voter ideological biases, and a “swing voter” outcome emerges. In this context, a problem of exclusion from party transfer plans arises which depends on ideology distribution. Groups with extreme ideological preferences are excluded from these plans, and also within moderate groups a share of voters receives a nil transfer from the parties. This exclusion problem is generally reduced if a transformation of the electorate occurs which decreases the polarization of the distribution of ideology.