Chapter Nine Nominations, Elections, and Campaigns

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 9-2 The Evolution of Campaigning An election campaign is an organized effort to persuade voters to choose one candidate over others competing for the same office. Increasingly, election campaigns have evolved from being party-centered to being candidate-centered.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 9-3 Nominations In the U.S., candidates campaign for nomination as well as election. Primary Election: a preliminary election conducted within a political party to select candidates who will run for public office in a subsequent election. This is how most candidates for major office are nominated

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 9-4 Primary Election Types A closed primary in which voters must register their party affiliation to vote on that party’s potential nominees. An open primary in which any voter, regardless of party registration or affiliation, could choose either party’s ballot.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 9-5 Modified Primary Elections A modified closed primary: Individual state parties decide whether to allow those not registered with either party to vote with their party registrants. A modified open primary: All those not already registered with a party could choose any party ballot and vote with party registrants.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 9-6 Primary Election Types (Cont’d) The invisible primary: Soon after one election ends, prospective candidates quietly begin lining up political and financial support for their likely race approximately four years later, has also increased in use.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 9-7 Nominations (Cont’d) To nominate a presidential candidate, parties employ a complex mix of ways of polling voters, including presidential primaries, local party caucuses, and party conventions.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 9-8 Elections All seats in the House of Representatives, one-third of the seats in the Senate, and numerous state and local offices are filled in a general election held on the Tuesday after the first Monday in November in even-numbered years.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. 9-9 Elections (Cont’d) Voters choose a president indirectly through the electoral college, composed of electors pledged to one of the candidates.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Figure 9.4: The Popular Vote and the Electoral Vote

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Elections (Cont’d) Every four years, presidential and congressional elections are held on the same ticket. Congressional elections are also held in other even-numbered years. In recent years, elections have resulted in divided government, in which one party controls the presidency and the other party controls the Congress.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Elections (Cont’d) So-called first-past-the-post elections, conducted in single-member districts, award victory to the candidate with the most votes. In congressional elections, this means that the party that wins the most votes tends to win even more seats than projected by its percentage of the vote. The Republican party has benefited from the mathematics of first-past-the-post elections since 1994.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Campaigns Election campaigns may be studied by analyzing the political context, the available financial resources, and the strategies and tactics that underlie the dissemination of information about the candidate.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Campaigns (Cont’d) Political context: An incumbent, the current officeholder, usually enjoys an advantage over a challenger, who seeks to replace him or her. An open election lacks an incumbent.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Campaigns (Cont’d) Financing: Election campaigns have become very expensive, and ample financing is usually critical to success. Campaign financing for federal election today tends to be heavily regulated through the Federal Election Commission.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Campaigns (Cont’d) In Buckley v. Valeo, the Supreme Court upheld limits on contributions but declared unconstitutional limits on expenses incurred by individuals or organizations who campaigned independently on behalf of a national candidate, likening these expenditures to protected free speech.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Campaigns (Cont’d) The Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act changed campaign finance rules effective for the 2004 election

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act Raises the individual contribution limit to $2,000 to a specific candidate in a primary, run-off and general election Permits a contribution of $5,00 per year to each state party or political committee Permits a contribution of $20,000 per year to any national party committee Linked future limits to inflation

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Campaign Strategies and tactics Using information obtained from pollsters or political consultants, professional campaign managers develop a strategy that mixes party, issues, and the candidate’s “image” (perceived personal qualities).

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Campaign Strategies and Tactics (Cont’d) Three basic strategies include: “Party-centered strategy” “Issue-oriented strategy” “Image-oriented strategy”

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Campaigns (Cont’d) Campaign messages are disseminated to voters via the media through news coverage, candidate appearances on popular television programs, home pages on the World Wide Web, and advertising.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Explaining Voter Choice The choices individual voters make can be analyzed as products of both long-term forces, which operate over a series of elections, and short-term forces, which are associated with particular elections. Party identification is the most important long-term factor in voting choice.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Explaining Voter Choice (Cont’d) Party identification is the most important long-term factor in voting choice.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Figure 9.5: Effect of Party Identification on the Vote, 2004

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Explaining Voter Choice (Cont’d) Candidates seek to exploit issues that they think are important to voters Among short-term forces, candidate attributes are especially important when voters lack information about a candidate’s past behavior and policy stands.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Explaining Voter Choice (Cont’d) Most studies of presidential elections show that when people cast their ballots, issues are less important than either party identification or the candidate’s image. There are definite limits to the effects of an election campaign on the outcome of elections. Factors outside the control of campaign managers have powerful effects on voting behavior.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Campaigns, Elections, and Parties Although the party affiliation of the candidates and the party identification of the voters explain a good deal of electoral behavior, party organizations are not central to U.S. elections.

Copyright © Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved Campaigns, Elections, and Parties (Cont’d) The Republican and Democratic parties fail to meet two of the four principles of responsible party government noted in Chapter 8. Parties in the United States typify the pluralist more than the majoritarian model of democracy.