What Happened in the School Board Election?

I was surprised by the results of the school board election. I had been expecting the Bob Willette and I would be re-elected, and that John Parker would come in third. My simplistic thought was that Bob and I are fairly well-known and thus we would get the most votes, and that John was somewhat of an unknown to most voters in Milford and would thus receive fewer votes.

Upon reflection, I have an idea as to what happened, and it relates to the way a three-way race for two positions can play out.

There are three types of voters for this school board race:
1. Status quo voters: ones that like the way things are going and want to stay with the current directions.
2. Conservative voters: ones that are relatively conservative and want to move the board to the right from the status quo.
3. Liberal voters: ones that are relatively liberal and want to move the board to the left from the status quo.

As a general rule, Bob is fairly conservative, and I am more liberal than him. John's political leanings are less well known, but my impression is that he is perceived as being somewhat in the middle relative to Bob and I. Whether that is true or not doesn't matter; what does matter when making a voting choice is the perception of the voters. Assuming the perceived positioning is correct, then:

* Status quo voters would tend to vote for Bob and I, to try to keep things moving in the same direction as today.

* Relatively conservative voters would tend to vote for Bob and John, since John is perceived as being more conservative than me.

* Relatively liberal voters would tend to vote for John and I since John is perceived as being more liberal than Bob.

This three-way arrangement is common for a three way race for two openings. The three choices are evaluated on some sort of a continuum (such as liberal-conservative), and then they are ranked according to the perception.

Each candidate is chosen in two out of the three possibilities. The number of votes that any one candidate gets is determined by the distribution of voters into the three categories, neglecting bullet voters that only vote for one candidate instead of two.

It seems to me that the candidate that is in the middle when the three choices are rank ordered will have an advantage since he will be the second choice for voters on both ends of the spectrum.

I think that there were somewhat fewer status quo voters this year, and that of the voters that were not leaning towards status quo, there were more liberal leaning voters than conservative leaning voters. This mix would end up with John getting more votes than he would normally get as an unknown candidate.

I'm sure that these types of electoral dynamics are studied in depth somewhere, but I could not find any studies with a brief google search. I would be interested in reading them if anyone has a link to a discussion somewhere on this topic.