For ownership, performance and generalised competence to add meaningfully to the understanding of electoral behaviour, their effects should be observed individually and in combination. This chapter demonstrates how each concept influences voting decisions and therefore how each shapes election outcomes. Analyses of individual level data, and of aggregate level data, shows effects for all three concepts in vote choices in the U.S. and in the U.K., controlling for key variables. Furthermore, the chapter assesses the question of when and why competence should be particularly important to elections, taking the valence argument of Donald Stokes that events and some elections should cause competence to matter more. This suggests that the concepts of competence are not always equally important in explaining electoral support over time, but that their influence depends upon the political context. The drivers of this importance appear to be shaped by major political, economic, policy and international events, and the role of elections in establishing when vote choices are – or are not – more closely associated with issue competence.