Elections and Campaigns

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Elections and Campaigns
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Elections

• Opportunity to choose who controls government
• Citizens main official input
• Legitimacy
• Accountability
• Retrospective voting
• Prospective voting

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Elections And Accountability

• Candidates are motivated by electoral success
• Elected officials wish to continue to hold office
• Ensures at least some responsiveness
• Move towards center
• Balancing act

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Elected Offices

• Federal
• President
• Congress
• State
• Governor
• State Legislature
• Judges (sometimes)

• Local Elections
• County Boards
• Mayor
• City Council
• School Boards
• Other offices

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Types of Election

• General Election
• Primary Election
• Open
• Closed
• Non-Partisan

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Referenda and Recall

• Referendum
• Initiative
• May Increase Responsiveness
• Majority Tyranny?
• Confusion
• Recall
• In Many States for certain offices
• Not at federal level
• Retention

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Presidential Primaries

• Select delegates for national convention
• Winner take all
• Proportional representation
• Caucus
• Trend towards more primaries and more open
  caucuses

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Voting in primaries

• Open Primary
• Closed Primary
• More democratic?
• Extremism?
• Primary voters more partisan

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Primaries

• Used to select convention delegates
• Divisive Primaries Can Hurt
• Early vs. Late
• Convention Battle
• Choice of VP
• More conflict-gtless chance

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Primaries

• Front Loading
• E.g. New Hampshire, Iowa
• Momentum
• Increases Importance of Small States
• Increases Importance of fundraising
• Benefits Front Runner
• Quality of Candidates
• Regional Primaries
• E.g. Super Tuesday

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Conventions

• Early- Party Control
• Uncommitted delegates
• Conflict

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Conventions

• Delegates selected by primaries
• Democrats- Proportional Representation
• Delegates- more ideological extreme, more elite
  than average

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Conventions- Functions

• No Longer Key to choosing candidate
• Announce VP
• Vote on platform stating party principles
• Advertisement
• Post convention bounce

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Electoral College

• Low profile
• Original intent- overcome lack of information
• Representationhousesenate
• Early- cast two votes, winner is president,
  runner up VP
• 12th amendment- Shift to 2 separate votes
• Today, varying degrees of delegate discretion
• If no majority winner, decided in house

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Electoral College

• Can distort Results
• Usually, Popular winner wins by greater margin
• Popular winner can lose
• 2000 Bush wins 271-266
• Without Florida, Gore Wins 266-244
• 2004- If Kerry had won Ohio, would have lost
  popular vote, won presidency

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Reforming Electoral College

• Count at district level
• Abolish elector discretion
• Abolish college

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Congressional Elections

• Coattails
• Incumbency advantage
• Midterm elections
• Low turnout
• Presidents party Usually loses seats

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Counting Votes

• US- First Past the Post Plurality System
• May Minimize representation of minority opinions
• Partly responsible for 2 party politics
• Proportional representation
• Assign seats in proportion to total vote
• De-emphasizes individuals, emphasizes parties

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Voter Behavior

• Two Key Issues
• Decision to participate
• Decision whom to vote for

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Turnout

• Voting one form of political participation
• Lowest cost of participation
• Decision to vote a function of perceived benefit,
  probability of influencing outcome, cost of
  voting
• VP(B)-C
• Doesnt have to be explicit
• Most reasons people dont vote fit into P, B, or C

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Reasons for not voting

• Inconvenience (cost)
• One vote doesnt matter (probability)
• Little difference between parties (benefit)

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Reforms To Increase Turnout

• Motor Voter (1992)
• Easier Absentee voting
• National Holiday
• 2 Day voting

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Who Doesnt Vote?

• Those less interested in politics
• Young
• Less Educated
• Lower Income
• Blacks?
• Why?
• Job Flexibility
• Lack of Efficacy
• Lack of Civic Skills?

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Non voting- Does it matter?

• No- Sign of general satisfaction
• No- curbs radicalism
• No- Sends message of dissatisfaction
• Yes- Winners will claim mandate anyway
• Yes- Opinions of non-voters very different from
  those of voters
• Yes- weakens system

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What determines the vote?

• Long term predispositions
• Party Identification
• As a social grouping
• As a heuristic
• Ideology
• Ticket Splitting

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What determines the vote?

• Demographic factors
• Race
• Blacks- Heavily Democratic
• Whites- Slight tilt Republican
• Asian/Latino- Mixed
• Gender
• Income
• Education
• Religion

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What determines the vote?

• Short term forces
• Issues
• Single issue voters
• Issue ownership
• Issue salience

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What determines the vote?

• The economy
• Retrospective
• Prospective
• Pocketbook
• Sociotropic
• Most Important- Prospective Sociotropic
• Economy and prediction

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What Determines the vote?

• Candidates
• Traits
• Leadership
• Strength
• Competence
• Compassion/empathy
• Insider/outsider
• Experience

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What determines the vote?

• The media
• Priming
• Image
• Horse race

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What determines the vote?

• Campaigns
• Public Appearances
• Speeches
• Debates
• Spin
• Missteps
• Advertising

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General Campaign

• Turn out supporters
• Convert swing voters
• Target certain states
• Swing States
• Electoral College Votes
• Public Appearance

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Campaign and the Media

• The Message
• Sound Bytes
• Campaign handlers
• Spin
• Horse race coverage
• Debates

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Advertising

• Largest Campaign expenditure
• Narrowly or Broadly targeted
• Usually short spots
• Issues
• Images
• Attack

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Negative advertising

• Widely despised
• May be effective
• Issue content
• Turnout
• Iyengar- Demobilizes voters
• Others- No effect on turnout, or even slight
  increase
• Stevens- Mobilization depends on expertise
• Backlash
• Interest Groups
• Free exposure