Presidential Elections

Stages of Election

• Exploratory Campaigning

  • Publicity, book tours (often an autobiography), fundraising, debates

• Intraparty Elections

  • Via either a direct primary or a caucus

• Presidential Nomination

  • Done through a party convention

  • Convention of delegates who nominate president, write platform, and set rules for next presidential election

• General Election and Electoral College

Selection of Candidates

• The race for the party nomination features decentralized races in each state

• Influenced by national party incentives determining delegate counts

• Selected via caucus or primary

• Incumbency advantage

  • “Native sons” and daughters (being from the state the primary is held)

  • Open and closed participation

• Logistics

  • Delegate distribution

  • Superdelegate vs. delegate

  • Calendar of elections

• Support for Candidates

  • Decentralized party system

  • Endorsement from party elites and special interest groups

  • Private financing and volunteers
    
    

Incumbency Advantage Phenomenon

• Acquisition of campaign skills, resources

• Better and campaigning

• Voter attitudes and name recognition towards incumbent

  • Prospective voting

  • Retrospective voting

Caucus vs. Primary States

• States run elections for party nominating contests by party request

Caucus

• Synchronous rounds of voting performed via persuasive dialogue

• Only registered members of the party can attend

Primaries

• Somewhat asynchronous

• One-time voting via ballots

• Features the Australian ballot

  • Paid for and distributed by state

  • Marked in private

  • Features all qualified candidates

Closed Primaries

• Only registered party members participate

• Lower turnout

• More responsive to party desires
  
  
  
  

Open Primaries

• Voters do not  necessarily have to register as a member of a party

• Public declaration v. private choice

• Can lead to “raiding the ticket”

Partisanship and Primaries

• Adaptations such as blanket primaries and rank-choice voting

• Seek to limit partisanship

Timeline of Primaries

Parties

• Try to keep schedule manageable

• Carrot: allocate more delegates to go later

• Stick: take away delegates if states jump the line

States

• Want to go as early as possible

  • So that citizens can get a meaningful opportunity to influence outcome

  • Make money from ads and events

• Can lead to frontloading, a phenomenon where states stack primaries and caucuses early

• Frontloading allows for runaway candidates

Front-Runner

• Wants a quick nomination

• Can seek to influence the sequence of nomination events for their benefits

Candidates

• Want states that are relatively small,  have a homogenous population, and play to the voter coalition the candidate is courting

• Difficult for candidates to get media attention, acquire funding, establish infrastructure, and visit

Delegates

Allocation of Delegates

• Winner-Take-Alll vs. Proportional allocation

• Parties have different preferences

Winner-Take-All

• A faster path to declaring the nominee

• Candidate with plurality wins all delegates for a state

• Preferred by Republicans

• 50% of GOP delegates awarded by mid-March 2016

Proportional

• Extends the race and allows for more representation for coalitions

• Candidates awarded delegates based on proportion of vote above 15%

• Preferred by Democrats

• 50% of Democratic delegates awarded by mid-April 2016

Superdelegates

• Individuals in the party organization and party in the government who are granted the right to vote individual preference at the party nominating convention

• Found in both parties

  • Democratic Party: 15% in 2016

  • Republican Party: 7% in 2016

• Similar to pre-McGovern Fraser Commission delegates

  • Nominated regardless of the public’s preference for the presidential candidate

Delegates

• Number determined by party

• Delegate seats awarded by allocation rules set by state

• Vote as voters indicated preference on ballot

• Allowed to vote as a superdelegate if there is a brokered election

General Elections and Electoral College

Timing of Election

• Federal general elections required by Constitution on even numbered years

• Federal law: first Tuesday after first Monday in November

Election selects Electors

• How electors are chosen is left to states to determine by Constitution

• Most states award electors via winner-take-all

  • Winner of the plurality vote state-wide

  • Maine and Nebraska have a modified district distribution called the Congressional District Method

Relative Importance of State Contests

• Swing States/Battleground States

  • Distribution of electors and composition of voting means only competitive states with large populations matter

  • Include Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Michigan

• Large, homogenous states have less significance in the race

  • Texas, California, New York

Significance

• According to the Election Project’s analysis of the 2016 General Election:

• 43.1% of eligible voters did not vote

• Hillary Clinton received 65,853,625 votes

  • 48% of the voter turnout in total

  • 232 Electoral College Votes

  • 27% of the voting eligible population

• Donald Trump received 62,985,106 votes

  • 45.9% of the voter turnout in total

  • 306 Electoral College votes

  • <27% of the voting eligible population

• There is an advantage to geography over population in the distribution of electors, courtesy of the Great Compromise

Proposed Reforms

• Flawed Reforms:

  • Require Constitutional Amendment

  • Do not completely prevent an Electoral College loss of the popular vote winner

  • Inject a high degree of partisanship

• Most popular reform: National Popular Vote Compact

  • Requires the agreement of enough states so that the total of their electors is equivalent to the majority of the Electoral College

  • Surrenders state vote to winner of popular vote

Congressional Elections

Incumbent Behavior

• Incumbency Advantage Phenomenon

  • Name recognition

  • Franking privilege (sending mail for free)

• Significant amounts of time spent fundraising

• “Congressmen spend 5-7 hours on the phone per day”

State Election Impacts

• Nomination Process

  • Caucus, primary, convention, canvass?

  • Open vs. closed primaries

  • “Getting on the ballot”

• General Election

  • Ballot structure and election timing

Linkage Institutions

• Special interest groups and parties

• Give benefits to candidates

  • Endorsements

  • Mobilization

  • Going Public

  • Financing

  • Media coverage

  • Debates