Elections and Campaigns
CHAPTER 10
Presidential Versus
Congressional Campaigns
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Presidential and congressional races differ
in four important ways.
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The First, Presidential races are more
competitive than those for the house of
representatives. In the thirty five elections
form 1932 to 2000 the republicans won
control of the house only six times. In the
eighteen presidential elections during the
same period the republicans won the white
house on eight occasions
Second, a much smaller proportion of
people vote in congressional races during
off years ( that is , when there is no
presidential contest) than vote for
president.
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Cont…
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Third, members of congress can do things
for their constituents that a president
cannot. They take credit-sometimes
deserved. Sometimes not-for every grant,
contract, bridge, canal, and highway. The
federal government provides the district or
the state.
Fourth, a candidates for congress can
deny that he or she is responsible for “the
mess in Washington” even when the
candidate is an incumbent. Incumbents
tend to run as individual, even to the point
of denouncing the very congress of witch
they are a part.
Cont…
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Fourth, a candidates for congress can deny
that he or she is responsible for “the mess
in Washington” even when the candidate is
an incumbent. Incumbents tend to run as
individual, even to the point of denouncing
the very congress of witch they are a part.
Running for president
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The task facing anyone who wishes to be
president is to get mentioned as some one
who is of presidential caliber no one is
quite sure why some people are mentioned
and others are not.
Money: one reason why running takes so
much time is that it takes so long to rise
the necessary money and build up an
organization of personal followers.
Organization: raising and accounting for
this money requires a staff of fund-raisers,
lawyers, and accountants.
Strategy and themes: every candidates
picks a strategy for the campaign. In
choosing one, much depends on whether
you are the incumbents
Getting Elected to Congress
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A president cannot serve more than two terms
so at least once every eight years you have a
chance of running against a no incumbent
members of co0ngress can serve for an
unlimited number of terms and so chances are
you will run against an incumbent.
Winning the primary: however the district
lines are drawn, getting elected to congress
first requires getting one’s name on the ballot.
Staying in office: have 2 ways first, produce
legislator who are closely tied to local
concerns. Second, ensures that party leaders
will have influence over them
Television, Debates, and
Direct Mail
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Main way of campaigning is broadcasting
-Spots
-Visuals
Television effect on voting very small to non Exiting
-Voters have other resources
Visual v. spots
-Spots are more affective
-Spots have more information leave on impression on
viewers
-Visual are harder to make effective
Televised campaign debates
-No data on how they may affect an election
-Can give rise to unknown candidates
Interest
-Lists
-Target certain groups of people
-Less chance of offending some one
Running a campaigns has become has separated
from governing
Money
Money is the mother’s milk of
politics”
 Candidates with most money
don’t always win
 House & senate spend over half
a billion dollars in 2002 on adds
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The Sources of Campaign Money
Presidential candidate
-Private donors
-Federal government
 Congressional candidates get
their money from private
sources
-gov’t also gives parties up to
74.4 million dollars
-most money comes from small
donations
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Campaign Finance Rules
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Individuals can’t contribute more than
$1,000
Political Action Committee (PAC) at least
50 members, no more than $5,000 to least
5 candidates
Independent expenditures: spending by an
organization (PAC, Union, etc.) that is done
to help a party or candidate but is done
independently of them
Soft money: funds obtained by parties that
are spent on party activities, such as get
out and vote drives, but not for a specific
candidate.
Finding A Winning Coalition
There are to ways to find out the nature of
party’s voting coalition
 #1 to ask what % of groups in the
population support the Democratic party or
Republican candidate for president
- This answers how loyal the groups
(unions, farmers, etc) are
 #2 to ask what proportion of a the party’s
total vote came form each group (African
Americans, Asians, Hispanics, etc)
-this informs us how important each group
is to a candidate or party
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Cont…
Democratic–Africans are the most loyal
voters except in
-1952 2/3 voted Democratically
-1964 4/5 voted Democratically
 Hispanic turn out low, most not citizens so
political power is not equivalent to their #’s
Republicans often describe as a party of
business & professional people, loyally is
strong except in 1964 to support Lyndon
Johnson
 Farmers are sensitive to farm prices thus
quick to change parties
 Every year a winning coalition must be
made to win votes
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The Effects of Elections on Poling
The election of 1964 democrats such
a large majority in congress &
presidency brought forth new
policies
-Medicare& Medicaid
-Federal aid to education & local
enforcement
-Two dozen environmental & consumer
protection laws
-Voting Rights Act of 1965
-revision of immigration laws
-A new cabinet-level Dept of Housing
& Urban Development
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A Second Campaign
Finance Law
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The campaign finance reforms of 1970 made it
harder for new candidates to raise money (
especially for those who are not wealthy
Eg.- -individual contributions = $250 or less
-Interest groups and corporations =
$5,000 or less
-Self contributions = unlimited
A congressional movement to reform the 1970's
created the Biparistian finance reform act of 2002.
This act:
-banned sort money ( from corporations and
unions)
-the amount of individual contributions was
raised from $1,000 to$2,000
-imposed sharp restrictions on “independent
expenditures” by corporations, labor unions,
etc..
New sources of money
Programs such as Media Fund
and American Voters are
generated by those who can no
longer contribute with “soft
money” and still want to support
a candidate
 Eg.- a wealthy man donated $23
million to an organization who
wanted to defeat George
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Bush
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Money and Winning
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In presidential campaigns, money does not matter
as much because candidates receive the same
amount of money from the federal government
3 significant aspects that affect presidential
candidates on the election outcomes
-Political affiliation,
80% of presidential votes go to
candidates from eighter of the 2 main parties
(Democrats or Republicans)
-the state of the economy
In good economic times party holding
the White House does well, and in bad, it
it does badly
-the character of the candidate
Does the candidate think as the voters
think about social issues ( abortion, gun
control, etc.?)
What decides the
election
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Voters tend to vote their party
identification , even if they don’t
know the candidates position on
a certain issue.
Primary Versus General
Campaigns
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Primary elections- designed to
choose each party’s nominee.
General elections- picks the winner
who would hold office.
Some states like Iowa hold caucuses
instead of primary elections.
What may help you win a primary
election or a caucus can be different
from what will help you win a
general election.
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Democrats who participate in the Iowa
caucus tend to be more liberal than
Democrats generally.
Two Kinds of Campaign
Issues
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Position issues- an issue about which
the public is divided and rival
candidates or political parties adopt
different policy positions.
Valence issue- an issue about which
the public is united and rival
candidates or political parties adopt
similar positions in hopes that each
will be thought to best represent
those widely shared beliefs.
Issues, Especially the
Economy
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Even though voters may not know a lot about the
issues, it doesn’t necessarily mean that issues play
no role in elections or that voter’s respond
irrationally to them.
Voters are more informed about issues that really
matter to them, issues like whether unemployment
is up or down, prices at the supermarket are stable
or rising, or crime is a problem in their
neighborhoods. In contrary to issues such as
monetary policy, business regulation, and the trade
deficit.
On certain issues like abortion, school prayer, and
race relations they are likely to have some strong
principles that they want to see politicians obey.
Politics can function without well informed citizens
Two ways in which issues can affect elections
Two ways in which issues
can affect elections
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Prospective voting - voting for a candidate because
you favor his or her ideas for handling issues.
It requires a lot of information about issues and
candidates.
They are a minority of all voters.
Retrospective voting – Voting for a candidate
because you like his or her past actions in office.
Does not require you to have a lot of information, the
only thing that should be clear is whether things have,
in your view, gotten better or worse.
Elections are decided by retrospective voters.
An example of retrospective voting was in the
elections of 1980 in which voters decided to vote
against jimmy carter because in their view things had
gotten worse under his command. People then decided
to vote for the other candidate the alternative
candidate, Ronald Reagan. In simple terms people
weren’t necessarily voting for Reagan they were just
NOT voting for Carter…does that make sense
The Campaign
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Campaigns can make a difference in 3 ways
 They reawaken the partisan loyalties of voters.
 Campaigns give voters a chance to watch how the
candidates handle pressure, and they give
candidates a chance to apply that pressure.
 Campaigns allow voters an opportunity to judge
the character and core values of the candidates.
Once the campaign has begun both candidates
immediately start searching each others personal
history, records and statements in order to portray the
worst possible image in newspaper or TV ads.
Many voters don’t like these negative ads but they
work by stimulating voter turnout.
Voters receive guidance as to how a candidate will
behave once elected by listening to the themes and
tone of his statements in contrast to the details of
what he actually says.
Today activists and single-issue groups influence the
selection of candidates, sometimes out of a belief that
it is better to loose with the right candidate than to
win with the wrong one.