Evaluating the Roles of Ethnicity and Performance in African Elections: Evidence from an Exit Poll in Kenya

While many scholars argue that ethnicity drives voting behavior in Africa, recent quantitative work finds government performance also matters. But under what conditions do Africans use ethnicity or performance to inform their vote? We argue that the importance of ethnicity and performance is conditional on whether voters evaluate co-ethnics and incumbent candidates. We hypothesize co-ethnic voters will coordinate and form blocs, whereas non-co-ethnics are more likely to divide their support between candidates. We also hypothesize that while incumbent performance matters to all voters independent of ethnicity, citizens will forgive their co-ethnic incumbent's poor performance. Tests using data from a nationwide exit poll we conducted during Kenya's 2007 national election strongly support our hypotheses. Our results are robust to analyses concerning the potentially confounding relationship between ethnicity and performance.