US Elections: Campaigns, Financing, and Voter Behavior
What If We Had a National Election System?
Constitutional Amendment Requirement
A national election system would necessitate a Constitutional amendment.
The People Who Run for Office
A statewide election of delegates to a political party’s national convention, used to determine its presidential nominee, is called a presidential primary.
Raising money is one of the biggest obstacles for potential presidential candidates.
People who run for office can be divided into two groups: self-starters and those who are recruited.
Self-starter candidates may get involved in political activities to advance their careers or specific programs.
Politicians who begin in lower offices and then aspire to Congress are said to have progressive ambitions.
Naturalized citizens are constitutionally barred from running for President of the United States.
A U.S. Senate candidate must reside in the state from which they are elected.
Holders of political office in the United States today are overwhelmingly white and male.
Since 1972, the number of women running for the U.S. House of Representatives has increased significantly.
Candidates for public office are likely to be professionals, especially lawyers and businesspeople.
Campaigns rely less on political parties now largely because fewer people identify with them.
Most political consultants work only for candidates of one political party.
A striking feature of modern political campaigns is the reliance on paid professionals rather than volunteers.
The Strategy of Winning
The goal of a political campaign is to win the election.
Highly visible incumbent candidates seeking reelection need to campaign minimally, mainly reminding voters of their achievements.
Independent and minor party candidates face the significant challenge of name recognition.
Both Democratic and Republican candidates often label third-party candidates as unserious and not worth voters’ time.
Tracking polls are used daily to detect last-minute shifts in the electorate.
Focus groups are small groups used to gather opinions about candidates and issues.
Several federal corrupt practices acts passed by Congress aimed to regulate campaign financing.
The 1939 Hatch Act aimed to regulate political contributions and expenditures to control influence buying.
The Federal Election Campaign Act of 1974 did not provide public funding for Congressional elections.
For a PAC to be legitimate, it must contribute to at least five federal candidates and raise money from at least 50 volunteer donors.
The Federal Election Commission was created to enforce the Federal Election Campaign Act.
A political action committee (PAC) represents an interest group raising campaign contributions for specific candidates or parties.
Campaign Financing Beyond the Limits
Soft money is the unlimited amount spendable by political parties for party activities.
Independent expenditures, unregulated funds spent by interest groups on advertising or other campaign activities, cannot be coordinated with a candidate’s campaign.
In Austin v. Michigan State Chamber of Commerce, the Supreme Court ruled that independent expenditures on behalf of candidates could be limited.
Bundling is the practice of combining maximum individual contributions to increase their impact on the candidate.
The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 bans soft money contributions to national parties and reduces campaign ads by special interest groups.
Running for President: The Longest Campaign
Primaries were introduced to open the nomination process to ordinary party members and weaken party bosses’ influence.
Presidential primaries were called beauty contests because their results had little impact on selecting national convention delegates.
The mass public, not party elites, now controls the presidential nomination process.
After the 1968 Democratic national convention, a special commission studied the primary system. Its reforms revolutionized the presidential nomination process for both parties.
The most important reforms require that delegates be elected by party voters.
National convention delegations must include a proportion of women, young party members, and ethnic minorities.
A superdelegate is a party leader or elected official allowed to vote at the national convention.
Types of Primaries
A closed primary limits candidate selection to declared party members.
An open primary lets voters vote in either party primary without disclosing their affiliation.
A blanket primary lets voters vote for candidates of multiple parties.
A run-off primary has candidates compete in a second primary for a majority vote.
A caucus is a closed meeting of party leaders to select party candidates.
Super Tuesday is a date with numerous presidential primaries.
Front-loading is the practice of moving presidential primaries earlier in the campaign.
The Electoral College
A political party’s credentials committee determines which delegates can participate in the national convention.
Electors cast ballots in the Electoral College.
The Constitution dictates that the number of electors equals the number of representatives and senators each state has in Congress.
State laws and party rules govern how electors are selected within each state.
The Constitution doesn’t require electors to vote for their party’s candidate.
If no presidential candidate receives an Electoral College majority, the U.S. House of Representatives decides the election.
A candidate can become president without winning the popular vote.
Major parties favor keeping the Electoral College, fearing its elimination would empower minor parties in presidential elections.
How are Elections Conducted?
The Australian ballot is secret and prepared, distributed, and tabulated by government officials.
The office-block ballot groups all candidates for each office under the office title.
The party-column ballot arranges candidates in one column under their respective party.
Parties with strong presidential or gubernatorial candidates prefer the party-column ballot.
The coattail effect is a popular candidate’s influence on other candidates on the same party ticket.
A study by Larry Sabato and Glenn Simpson suggests a high potential for vote fraud in many states.
Voting in National, State, and Local Elections
Voter turnout is the percentage of citizens participating in elections.
Wealthier people tend to be overrepresented in the electorate.
The rational-ignorance effect describes voters’ lack of incentive to get costly information about issues and candidates.
Some argue that media emphasis on the horse-race aspect of campaigns, rather than policy positions, discourages voting.
Legal Restrictions on Voting
Founding Fathers’ concerns about land ownership led to legal restrictions on voters during the Constitution’s drafting.
Since their late nineteenth-century introduction, registration laws have reduced voting participation by African Americans and immigrants.
Registration is entering a person’s name into the list of eligible voters.
How do Voters Decide?
Having a college education seems highly correlated with voting Republican.
Protestants in the United States have traditionally voted Republican.
A post-2000 campaign study indicated that more devout voters, regardless of affiliation, are more likely to vote Republican.
Historically, economic issues have most strongly influenced voters’ candidate choices.