Gimpel, James G.Karnes, Kimberly A.McTague, JohnPearson-Merkowitz, Shanna2025-05-122025-05-122008-02Gimpel, James G., Kimberly A. Karnes, John McTague, and Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz. 2008. "Distance-decay in the political geography of friends-and-neighbors voting." Political Geography 27 (2): 231-252. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2007.10.0050962-6298https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2007.10.005http://hdl.handle.net/11603/38162We articulate a theory of the relevance of distance to candidate support in election campaigns. Anchoring our effort in V.O. Key’s reflections on localism from a half century ago, we test whether distance from a candidate’s hometown base exacts a toll on support for that candidate in general elections. Employing a geographic information system (GIS), we measure the distance between a candidate’s home county, and every other county in the state. This method permits a direct test of the distance/localism hypothesis. Our results show that the impact of distance is non-linear, consistent with a classic distance-decay formulation of the effect. Notably, however, this effect operates only over a limited electoral terrain. Distance from a candidate’s hometown does not matter to the political support of the most geographically isolated populations, where candidates rarely emerge.26 pagesen-USAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United Stateshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/Distance-decayFriends-and-neighbors votingGovernors -- ElectionPolitical participationUnited States -- Politics and governmentPolitical party support -- United StatesText