The vote-stealing and turnout effects of Ross Perot in the 1992 US presidential election

Including abstention as a choice in vote choice models enables one to calculate the vote-stealing and turnout effects of third-party candidates. A model of the: vote including abstention also produces parameter estimates and marginal effects for some explanatory variables that differ from the results of a model that excludes abstention. We present two multinomial probit models of vote choice in the 1992 U.S. presidential election. One model includes abstention as a choice; the other does not. The model that includes abstention reveals that Ross Perot increased turnout by nearly three percentage points in 1992, and his candidacy decreased Clinton's margin of victory over Bush by seven percentage points. Under compulsory voting, Clinton's margin of victory barely increases, and Perot's vote share remains nearly constant.