The phrase "a candidate explanation for" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used when discussing a possible or proposed explanation for a particular phenomenon or observation.
Example: "The researchers presented a candidate explanation for the unexpected results observed in the experiment."
Alternatives: "a potential explanation for" or "a proposed explanation for".
A candidate explanation for these results is unobserved ability.
A candidate explanation for these results is that in Spain, occupational sorting is more importantly driven by education credentials than by host language skills.
We have, then, a candidate explanation for our experience of being located at a particular moment in time, the (specious) present.
Our results suggest that the alliance hypothesis merits further attention as a candidate explanation for human friendship.
A candidate explanation for this finding is that it reflects reverse causality; index cases who had a secondary case in their household were more likely to receive oseltamivir, perhaps because they were more likely to seek treatment.
Low interest rates is a first candidate explanation for the historically high valuation rations in the REIT market.
A strong candidate explanation for some aspects of the dysphoria associated with nicotine abstinence in smokers lies in the hypofunctioning of reward pathways.
On balance, the lack of any sex effect in that direction suggests strongly that if digit ratio indicates masculinization, then the high-running lines are the more feminized, and the possibility that lower digit ratios are more masculinized is a poor candidate explanation for our results.
This is an excellent candidate explanation for the odd pattern of total absence in the fossil record of any mammals much larger than one or two kilograms for the first 160 million years of the existence of this group [77] followed by an explosion of diverse large body mammalian forms in the last 60 million years.
A candidate explanation has to do with bargaining power.
I seem to know from my own case that mental events can be the explanation of behaviour, and I know of no other candidate explanation for typical human behaviour, so I postulate the same explanation for the behaviour of others.
