POL 3162
Introduction to American Politics
ELECTIONS
SHANG E. HA
SOGANG UNIVERSITY
Overview
 APT, Chapter 8
 What role do elections play in a democracy?
 How do elections work in the United States?
 How do candidates win elections?
 How do voters decide?
 Do elections matter?
The 2008 Presidential Election
Revisiting the 2008 Presidential Election
• President Obama proves the unpredictability of American
elections. Who he had to beat to become President:
•
Hillary Clinton was a former First Lady; had deep connections
to Democratic Party Leaders; and had demonstrated her ability to
win elections by twice winning votes to be U.S. Senator from NY
•
John Edwards had been the previous Vice-Presidential
candidate and U.S. Senator; possessed boyish good looks;
immensely wealthy trial lawyer; and had not yet been exposed for
having a child out-of-wedlock with his campaign videographer
while his wife battled recurring breast cancer.
•
John McCain was a Vietnam War veteran and war hero; he had
been a U.S. Senator for over two decades; had authored a bestselling memoir; and was also the author of major legislation (e.g.,
“campaign finance reform”, a.k.a., the McCain-Feingold act.)
American Elections: Basic Facts
 Types of Elections
 Presidential
 Congressional
 Gubernatorial
 Local (Mayor, City Council, School District, etc)
 State or Local Initiatives – Direct Democracy
Elections: Constitutional Requirements for
Candidates
Presidential Elections: Basic Facts
 Popular vote: the votes cast by citizens in an election
 Electoral vote: votes cast by members of the electoral
college; after a presidential candidate wins the
popular vote in a given state, that candidate’s slate of
electors cast electoral votes for the candidate on
behalf of that state
Presidential Election Results,
2000-2012
Electoral College (based on the 2010 Census)
Presidential Election in 2008
Presidential Election, 2012
Elections: Electoral Votes and Swing States
The 2000 Presidential Election
Something Was Wrong in Florida…
What Happened in 2000?
The Butterfly Did It!!!
Good Job, Palm Beach County, FL!
The Final Result in Florida 2000 (After recounts
stopped by the Supreme Court)
Candidates
Number of
Votes Received
Percentages
George W. Bush
2,912,790
48.847
Al Gore
2,912,253
48.838
What Do Elections Do?
Select representatives: Because voters do not make
direct decisions about major policy issues facing the
country, elections allow voters to select candidates who
represent their views.
 Incumbent
– A politician running for re-election to
the office that he or she already holds
 Challenger
– A politician running for an office that
he or she does not hold at the time of election.
Challengers run against incumbents or in open-seat
elections
 In
congressional races, incumbents have an
enormous advantage, winning a trip back to
Washington D.C. over 90 percent of the time.
(incumbent advantage)
Elections: Percentage of Incumbents Reelected
What Do Elections Do? (con’t)
 Create Accountability to the Voters: Through
retrospective evaluation, voters decide whether the
incumbents have represented their interests on what is
most important to them; if the incumbent has, they will
vote to reelect.
 In the case of the presidential election, the key issue is obviously
THE ECONOMY!
How Do American Elections Work?
• All federal candidates and most state candidates must win two
different elections to serve in office:
i.
First, they must win the primary election, in which they run
against other candidates from the same political primary.
ii.
Second, they must win the general election, in which they run
against candidates from different political parties.
 Nomination – The selection of a particular candidate to run for
office in a general election as a representative of his or her
political party
 General election – The election in which voters cast ballots for
House members, Senators, and a president and vice-president.
How Do American Elections Work?
 Most House and Senate contests involve plurality
voting: the candidate who gets the most votes wins
 Some states use majority voting: a candidate needs a
majority (more than 50% of the vote) to win

Runoff election: under a majority voting system, a second
election held only if no candidate wins a majority of the votes
in the first election
Presidential Elections
 The Nominating Process
 State-level primaries and caucuses
 Select delegates who attend their party’s national convention
and vote to select their party’s nominee for the presidency
 The National Convention
 Formally elects candidate
 Introduces VP candidate
Electoral Campaigns
 Potential challengers consider whether to run:
 Is the incumbent retiring (open seat)?
 Is the incumbent vulnerable (competitive district)?
 Are national tides moving in one direction?
 Financial decisions
Campaign Strategies

Wholesale politics – Targeting a mass audience (e.g., TV ads)

Retail politics – Targeting a small group with intense attention (e.g., approaching families
individually at a county fair)

Name recognition – Knowing a candidate’s name makes a voter more inclined to vote for
that candidate.

Voter mobilization – Motivating voters to get out to the polls on Election Day

Building platforms – a candidate’s stances on issues and promises about how the candidate
will act in office. Much more important than the party platform.

Attack ads – also known as “contrast” or “negative” ads by people who defend them on the
basis that, although negative, they make voters aware of major issues.

Use of technology – Remember that Youtube was invented in 2005. Prior to that, “viral
video” was not an important part of campaigning.
Campaign Finance
 FEC – the Federal Election Commission is in charge of
administering election laws.
 Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act (BCRA, 2002) –
aka “McCain-Feingold” legislation; it outlawed soft money
 Hard money – money to help elect/defeat specific candidates
 Soft money – money used for mobilization and party building
Campaign Finance (con’t)
 Political action committee (PAC): a type of
organization that pools campaign contributions from
members and donates those funds to campaign for or
against candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation.
 Super PACs: may not make contributions to candidate
campaigns or parties, but may engage in unlimited
political spending independently of the campaigns.
Unlike traditional PACs, they can raise funds from
individuals, corporations, unions, and other groups
without any legal limit on donation size.
Campaign Finance (con’t)
 Citizens
United v. FEC (2010) – changed campaign
finance rules by removing all restrictions on independent
efforts funded by corporations and unions (overturned
McCain-Feingold law)
Citizens United, a conservative non-profit organization, made a
political documentary on Hillary Clinton to critically evaluate her,
and planed to air it before the Democratic primaries in 2008.
 The federal government blocked it.
 The Supreme Court decided in favor of Citizens United.

 Limits
on campaign finance are challenging to implement due
to free speech concerns. (the First Amendment prohibited the
government from restricting independent political
expenditures by a nonprofit corporation.)
Koch Brothers
Koch Brothers (con’t)
Contribution Limits in the 2012 Elections
Candidate, Party, and Interest Group Election
Fund-Raising, 2006–2012
Elections: Turnout in Presidential and Midterm
Elections, 1992–2014
Elections: Groups and Votes in the 2014
Congressional Election
What Affects Voting Behavior?
 People use shortcuts to make decisions with limited
information. They include:
 One’s partisanship (the single best predictor of one’s
vote)
 Incumbency
 Candidate’s personal traits (gender, race, age, religious
beliefs)
 Retrospective evaluations (of macr0-economic
conditions)
Elections Matter
 Elections matter because candidates from the
Republican and Democratic parties stand for
different things and make different decisions in
office. (really???)
 President Obama’s election, for instance, has
already seen the historic passage of healthcare
reform, tightening of financial regulation, and a
significant stimulus package for the economy.