Political parties, campaign, and voting: voter decision-making in municipal elections

The election for mayor in the capital of the state of Minas Gerais in 2008 occurred in a complex context, characterized by alternating positions of the leading candidates in the polls and by a controversial, informal alliance between PT and PSDB. This study aims at offering the electoral groups' profiles and at assessing the determinants of the electoral choice in the 2008 mayoral election in Belo Horizonte (MG - Brazil). Making use of a multinomial model of logistic regression, we examine the effects of campaign exposure, party identification and the evaluation of mandates' and economy's performances on the voting decision for mayor. The data were collected by surveys carried out by the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais and the Instituto de Pesquisas Sociais, Politicas e Economicas (IPESPE), during the election's first and second rounds.