Voters Elect Politicians Who Closely Matched Their Preferences

What determines political candidates' election prospects? We match roll call votes of candidates for the majority elected upper house of parliament who were previously in the lower house with the preferences of their constituency as revealed in referenda. Thereby, we obtain a unique and direct measure of past congruence. Politicians who better represented the preferences of their constituency in the past exhibit a significantly and considerably higher probability of election. This provides first evidence for the direct retrospective voting rule, i.e. that voters elect politicians who represented their preferences well.