Voting, Elections and Campaigns

Patterns in Voter Turnout

• turnout - the proportion of the voting-age public that votes

• Education and Income– Higher education more likely to vote– Higher income more likely to vote

• Age– Over 30 more likely to vote

Patterns in Voter Turnout

• Gender– About the same or women slightly more likely to vote

• Race and Ethnicity– Whites tend to vote more regularly; may be

education/income effects– Hispanic Americans less likely to vote than African

Americans

• Interest in Politics– More interested more likely to vote

Why Is Voter Turnout So Low?

• Too Busy

• Difficulty of Registration – burden of registration on individual

• Difficulty of Absentee Voting

• Number of Elections – as in too many elections

Patterns in Vote Choice

• Party Identification

• Issues– retrospective judgment – evaluation of

party in power– prospective judgment – evaluation of a

candidate’s pledge

Types of Elections

– primary elections – who will represent party in general election

– closed primaries – only party’s registered voters can participate

– open primaries – anyone is allowed to vote, even from other parties

– crossover voting – participation in the other party’s primary

– raiding – organized attempt to influence other party results

Types of Elections

– runoff primary – occurs when there is no majority

– general election – election to public office– initiative – citizens propose legislation– referendum – legislature proposes legislation– recall – remove an incumbent from office

Nomination Campaign

• Begins at candidacy and ends at the party convention

– Primaries versus Caucuses• primaries direct election, caucuses party meetings• front-loading – the tendency of states to choose an early

date on the primary calendar

– The Party Conventions• nomination usually settled well in advance

– Delegate Selection• delegates are usually more elite than average Americans

The Key Players

• The Candidate• The Campaign Staff

– volunteers are central to campaigns.• The Candidate’s Professional Staff

– campaign manager – coordinates the campaign– finance chair – fund-raising– pollster – public opinion surveys– direct mailer – direct mail fund-raising– communications director – media strategy– press secretary – communicates with journalists– Internet team – web resources

The Electoral College

• The Electoral College in the Nineteenth Century

– confusion in 1800– modified by the Twelfth Amendment – separate

elections for president and vice president• The Electoral College in the Twentieth and

Twenty-First Centuries– Bush versus Gore (2000)– reapportionment – the reallocation of the number

of seats in the House of Representatives allocated to each state after each decennial census.

– shifts in population could alter the political map

Congressional Elections

• The Incumbency Advantage – people in office tend to remain in office. High rate of re-election, even when approval of Congress remarkably low…why?

– Redistricting• redistricting – redrawing congressional districts to reflect

increases or decreases in seats allotted to the states as well as population shifts within a state.

• gerrymandering – drawing of boundaries to product a particular electoral outcome

– The Impact of Scandals• Most incumbents implicated in scandals retire or resign

Congressional Elections

• Presidential Coattails– Successful presidential candidates carry into office

congressional candidates of the same party in the same election

• Midterm Elections – elections that take place in the middle of a presidential term

– the incumbent party usually loses seats in midterm elections

• The 2008 Congressional Elections– Democratic majority in both houses, plus the

Presidency

The Media’s Role in theCampaign Process

• Paid Media – political advertisements– positive ads– negative ads– contrast ads– inoculation ads

• Free Media – news stories– controlled by editors, not candidates

• The New Media – Internet – more information, more quickly– “rapid response”– first use of internet in 1992– social networking sites