You should look into it. Its a model for understanding the relationship between attitudes and behavior.
In short, questions about attitudes rarely predict subsequent behavior, unless the attitude in question is specifically focused on the behavior in question.
The mistake you are making is a common one. And that mistake is to assume that an "abstract attitude", like "popularity" will predict voting behavior.
Abstract attitudes (favorability, popularity, so on) have a very weak correlation with subsequent behavior. And it was that observation found in many psychological and sociological studies which prompted researchers to try and figure out why the correlation was so low. Like you, early attitude researches assumed that the correlation between abstract attitudes and behavior would be higher.
Over three decades, what they found is that if you want use attitudes to predict a certain behavior, then you have to examine attitudes towards performing that specific behavior. The closer the connection between the attitude and the behavior, the higher the correlation.
A simple example. You go to the grocery store and you encounter a person giving out free samples of some food product. You try it. And they ask you if you like it. And you say "yes". It turns out, you are no more likely to purchase that food item than a person who says "no" they don't like it.
The person who says "no" might buy it for some one else in the home thinking that THEY will like it. You said "yes", but you have people at home who you think won't like it. So you don't buy it. Asking some one if they "like" something will not predict the subsequent behavior. There are too many other factors involved.
The point is that if you want to predict whether some one is going to purchase that product, you have to ask them not if they "like" it, but if they are "likely to buy it today." Ask THAT question, and you get a much higher correlation between the attitude and the behavior.
And that's why "popularity" fails as a predictor of voting behavior.
The summary here is ok, but the guys who conducted the research over the last 30 years (Fishbein and Ajzen) have written large texts on the subject. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_of_reasoned_action
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Toooools!
