Presidential Elections Presidential Elections: • Party Primaries – Conventions • Polling – Consultants • Debates • Advertising – Positive and negative advertisements – Debates over effects of attack advertisements Running for President: Party Primaries • “Beauty contests” until 1968 – Voters did not decide delegates to national convention – Riots and chaos at 1968 Chicago Convention convinces Democratic National Committee to institute reforms • Today, delegates are selected through primary elections Types of Primaries • Who can vote in primaries? – – – – Closed primaries Open primaries Blanket Primaries Run-off primaries • How delegates are distributed – Winner-take-all primaries – Proportional primaries • These primaries determine who will get the nomination at the national convention States in Proportion to News Coverage of Primaries Consultants and Polling • Political consultants – Devise a strategy, think up a campaign theme, monitor the campaign’s progress, plan all media appearances, and coach candidates for the debates – Conduct various political polls throughout the campaign • Campaign polling – – – – Benchmark polls Tracking and Trend Polls Focus Groups Push polls Media and Political Campaigns • Political advertising: positive vs. negative – Positive advertising • Seek to define yourself before your opponent does it for you – Negative advertising • Does it work? – Yes Voters remember negative ads longer than positive ads » Negative ads provide information to voters 1964 – Daisy Spot 1988 – Willie Horton 2000 - Meatball The Debates: • 1960: First Televised Debate • 1984: Reagan’s Age – "I will not make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going to exploit, for political purposes, my opponent's youth and inexperience." • • • • 1988 - “You’re no Jack Kennedy” 1988 - Death Penalty 1992 - Price of milk? 2000 - Gore (sighing) Electoral College • Presidents are not elected by the public except indirectly. They are elected by the Electoral College – Each state’s number of electors equals that state’s number of senators (2) plus its number of representatives • 435 (House Reps) + 100 (senators) + 3 (Washington D.C.) = 538 Electoral Votes – Candidate who receives a majority of the electoral votes (270) wins – If no candidate receives 270 electoral votes, the election is thrown to the House of Representatives States in Proportion to Electoral Votes Benefits of Electoral College • Forces a candidate to campaign nationally – Worthless to “run up the score” at home • Advantages both large and small states – Large states: candidates spend more resources in these states – Small states: Overrepresented due to overrepresentation in Senate • Fraud and national recounts • American Candidate will have problems