Pre-election polls sometimes fail to reach the purpose for which they are carried out: to provide accurate predictions of electoral out-comes. By looking at the 2006 Italian General Elections, this paper aims to assess the role that different factors play in determining the accuracy of the...

We explore how public opinion polls affect candidates' campaign spending in political competition. Generally, polls lead to (more) asymmetric behavior. Under a majority rule there always exists an equilibrium in which the initially more popular candidate invests more in the campaign and thereby...