Voter Resonance to Candidate Characteristics in Municipal Elections

Attitudes and characteristics of candidates for the municipal election
1980 in the Mannheim area.

Topics: first-time candidacy; earlier candidacies for ´higher´
mandates, such as e.g. for the European Parliament or the Federal
Parliament; number and length of political mandates held; length of
party membership as well as party offices held and executive functions;
active participation in citizen initiatives; scale of assumed voter
orientation in voting (election of personalities versus list election
and personal tie to election candidates versus political issues);
expected number of seats of the party in the municipal council;
expectation to achieve a seat oneself; satisfaction with personal list
position; estimated proportion of votes for oneself in the total number
of votes; characteristics of an ideal municipal council member and
critical self-assessment regarding the same items (scale);
self-assessment of training of political abilities and special
knowledge; intended effort for special matters of local political
concern; club memberships and honorary offices exercised there; extent
of active participation in club meetings and public events; manner of
preparation for a speech; feelings of uncertainty with a larger
audience; preference for use of dialect; information on type and
frequency of election campaign activities undertaken; assessment of the
most effective election advertising; self-assessment of personal degree
of familiarity as municipal council candidate and satisfaction with
frequency of mention of name in the press; time invested in the
election campaign and financial investment; local residency in the
municipality; political activity of parents and grandparents; election
campaign support from friends and acquaintances; self-assessment of
political location in general and political location within one´s party
on a left-right continuum; interest in a research report on this
investigation; residential status; neighborhood contacts; preferred
manner of clothing; religiousness; distance to place of work; company
size; membership in a trade union.

Scales: democratic attitude; sociability.

Also encoded were data from the official election statistics about
performance of candidate or party in the municipal election 1980.

Demography: sex; marital status; characteristics of spouse; number of
children; religious denomination; frequency of church attendance;
school education; occupation; employment; income; social origins.