AP United States Government and

Politics Exam ReviewReview Day -- FOUR

Edwards Chapters 9 and 10 (Unit 4 from our course)

Chapter 8 in the review book(Nominations, Campaigns, Elections, and Voting

Behavior)

Nominations and CampaignsChapter 9

Nominations and Campaigns

• To run for a political office– must first receive a party’s official

nomination– with the party’s endorsement and

assistance, the candidate must campaign to win the support of voters• these two processes require a great deal of

money and media exposure• Presidential campaigning has become a major

part of the political process in the United States• Campaign strategy is the plan of candidates

to win the election• the nomination and campaign process is so

taxing that many qualified individuals make a decision not to run.

The Nomination Game

• Politicians begin their bid for a presidential nomination more than a year in advance of their election– in most other countries, campaigns are

limited to only a few months – most candidates have previously held a

government post, such as representative, senator, governor, or military general

Competing for Delegates• Each state selects delegates to send to the

Democratic and the Republican national conventions, which have the supreme power to select the Presidential nominee for the party– a few states will use traditional caucuses to

choose delegates• closed meetings of party regulars who

participate in party building activities and select nominees

• most states can now use primaries– voters can nominate a presidential candidate

directly, or else they can choose delegates who have pledged to vote for that candidate• state parties may have open primaries, where

any registered voter can fill out a party nomination ballot, or closed primaries, where advanced party registration is required

Competing for Delegates• political parties in each state decide how to

divide its delegates’ votes• Delegates are apportioned to each candidate

based in their proportion of the vote in each state congressional district– Republican Party gives all votes to the candidate

with the majority vote in each district– Democratic Party divides delegates proportionally

by district and statewide• also has “superdelegates”, which are not committed

by primary or caucus votes, and make their own choices at the national party convention

• rise of primaries has allowed the electorate to take control of the election process away from political parties

Evaluating the Primary and Caucus System

• primary system has raised numerous criticisms: 1) The early caucuses and primaries receive far too much media attention, which can distort campaigns – This places too much attention on the

outcome of early caucuses and primaries-notably in Iowa and New Hampshire, two states that are not very representative of the country as a whole

Evaluating the Primary and Caucus System

• primary system has raised numerous criticisms: 1) The early caucuses and primaries receive far

too much media attention, which can distort campaigns

• Candidates who do not score early victories are likely to be dismissed by the media and the public and to be unable to raise funds to continue campaigning

• States, to cast influential votes, try to hold their primaries early, before other states

– called frontloading, has made the campaign process longer

Evaluating the Primary and Caucus System

• primary system has raised numerous criticisms:

2) The lengthy campaign and rigors of the primary season discourage some capable politicians from running 3) It requires and encourages an exorbitant amount of spending in campaigns 4) Primaries are unrepresentative of the electorate because few people vote in them, and those who do are more likely to be older and wealthier than the majority of Americans 5) It allows the media, which focuses on winners and dismisses losers early in the running, tremendous influence in shaping campaigns

Evaluating the Primary and Caucus System

• A national primary is a proposal by critics of the current system who would like to replace the extended primary calendar with a nationwide primary held one day

• Regional primaries are another proposal by critics of the current system who would like to replace the extended primary calendar with a nationwide primary held on one day

The Convention Send-Off

• delegates selected in each state’s primary attend the national convention, where they cast their votes for their presidential candidate

• parties, especially the Democrats, have made efforts to reform delegate selection to ensure representation of youth, minorities, women, and organized labor at the convention, particularly after the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, when violence erupted both out on the streets and inside the convention center

The Convention Send-Off

• some convention seats are reserved for superdelegates, party leaders and politicians who automatically earn a vote at the convention– Democratic Party makes greater use of

superdelegates than the Republican Party• outcome of conventions today is usually

predetermined by previous primary results, so conventions today are media events

The Convention Send-Off• At a national convention:

– delegates support their candidate – the party presents its official party

platform for the next four years – the winning candidate formally

accepts the party’s nomination – vice president is chosen, usually

based on the presidential nominee’s preference for a running mate

The Campaign Game• The two presidential candidates then embark

on a national campaign to win the votes of different groups in different regions of the country– Campaigns today are run fairly independently by

each candidate • Modern campaign techniques include:

– television advertising– televised public appearances– direct mail campaigns – an official web site to advance the candidate’s

platform and collect campaign contributions.

The Campaign Game• media closely follows campaigns

– coverage focuses on candidate’s daily activities, campaign strategies, and poll results

• studies show that voters learn more about the candidates’ positions on important uses from their advertisements than from the news

• critics fear that campaigns have become centered on candidates’ images rather than their political beliefs

• to coordinate a campaign, a candidate must hire a campaign team that serves both to organize his or her daily activities and to conduct public relations– adds significantly to the enormous cost a campaign

Money and Campaigning

• Candidates rely on television to communicate directly with the electorate, and air time often translates into votes– therefore, the necessity of television has

made American campaigns extremely expensive

• Politicians spend as much time fund-raising as doing their jobs

Money and Campaigning• 1974, Congress passed the Federal

Election Campaign Act to attempt to control campaigns – established the Federal Election

Commission to enforce campaign laws– Initiated public financing of elections –

taxpayers can choose to donate $3 to a federal campaign fund that is divided among all candidates by checking a box on their income tax form (Presidential Election Campaign Fund)

– set a limit for spending in each election by those who accept public funds

– required candidates to report all campaign contributions and how the money was spent

– individual campaign contributions were limited to $2000

Money and Campaigning• Soft money is one loophole through which

businesses and wealthy individuals can make unlimited contributions

• Soft money is intended for a party’s general use is therefore not a donation to a specific candidate, but it can be channeled into presidential campaigns– Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-

Feingold) attempted to ban soft money, as the candidate often rewards contributors once he or she is in office

– Supreme Court upheld the Act against a constitutional challenge in 2003

• loophole in the BCRA allowed 527 organizations to form and raise unlimited amounts to spend on advertising and voter mobilization efforts

Money and Campaigning• Political action committees (PACs) are

another method, established by the 1974 F.E.C. Act, through which interest groups try to influence policy through campaign contributions

• to contribute to a campaign, an interest group must channel money through a PAC, which must be registered with FEC so that it can be monitored

• no limit to the amount PACs can spend • PACs can act independently of the candidate

and his or her campaign team, by running an advertisement without the candidate’s approval

• Candidates rely on PACs to help finance costly campaigns

Money and Campaigning• PACs play a greater role in congressional elections

than in presidential elections• created to provide unions and other groups the

opportunity to contribute, PACs have been organized and used by businesses to affect elections

• despite the massive amount of money spent on campaigns and the media’s constant focus on them, campaigns rarely convert voters away from their predisposed party identification

Elections and Voting Behavior

Chapter 10

Elections and Voting Behavior

• Elections are the process through which power changes hands– change is possible because elections bestow

legitimacy both on the process and on the incoming officials who have been chosen to lead by a majority of the people

• according to the theory of democracy, elections give voters a voice in the policymaking because they allow people to choose the candidate who is most likely to act in their interests or according to their political beliefs– for this to work in practice, however, candidates

must represent distinct stands on the issues

How American Elections Work

• three kinds of elections in the United States:– primary elections– general elections– elections on specific policy issues

• take place at the local level through referendum (state-level method of direct legislation) and initiative petition (voter proposed changes in the state constitution)

Whether to Vote: A Citizen’s First Choice

• Suffrage has been expanded several times throughout American history

• Constitution left suffrage up to the states, generally only white, male, property-owners had the right to vote

• today, almost all Americans over the age of 18 can vote in elections– Fifteenth Amendment granted suffrage to

African Americans– Nineteenth Amendment extended voting

privileges to women– Twenty-Sixth Amendment set the minimum voting

age at 18

Whether to Vote: A Citizen’s First Choice

• Although more people are able to vote, fewer people are exercising this right. Some of their reasons for not voting:– believe that one vote in more than 100 million

makes little difference– unable to take off work to vote on Tuesday– reformers have suggested moving voting day to

Sunday– voter registration is difficult or inconvenient in

most states• procedures have been made easier, especially

with the Motor Voter Act, but turnout has still decreased

Whether to Vote: A Citizen’s First Choice

• Some reasons people are more likely to vote:– perceive a significant ideological difference

between the two party candidates– sense of political efficacy- they believe their vote

will make a difference– want to perform their civic duty in a democracy

Who Votes?

• People with a college education• Older people, especially senior citizens• Hispanic Americans and African Americans

are less likely to vote, but those with higher levels of educations vote in a greater percentage than educated Caucasians

• More women than men voted in recent elections

• Union members• People who are married

Who Votes?

• Politicians who rely on these voters to be elected are more likely to address their concerns in the policy arena– Studies show that if turnout increased among

groups with low rates, Democrats would probably receive more votes

How Americans Vote: Explaining Citizens’

Decisions• People vote according to their party identification– candidate of their chosen party probably

shares their political beliefs– do not have to decide on or become informed

about every issue• Voters evaluate what they know and see of the

candidates’ personalities to make a decision– candidate’s appearance may play an

unconscious role in voter decision-making• people tend to value integrity, competence, and

reliability in a candidate• voters with a college education are more likely

to base their decision on a candidate’s personality– make inferences about the candidate’s

performance

How Americans Vote: Explaining Citizens’

Decisions• People vote for candidates who share their policy preferences– Voters have firm policy convictions– familiar with each candidate’s policy preferences – able to discern differences among candidates’ stands

on issues• person may also vote retrospectively by

choosing a candidate who vows to continue policies helpful to him or her, or by choosing the opposition candidate who promises to change the policy– candidates may avoid taking a clear stand on a

controversial issue, making policy voting difficult– requires a lot of effort on the part of the voters

The Last Battle: The Electoral College

• President is not chosen directly by the people in the popular election– Electoral College casts the final vote– institution created by the framers to keep

presidency at a distance from the masses– intended to allow only the elite to choose the

president

The Last Battle: The Electoral College

• Each state’s number of electors is equal to its total number of representatives and senators– Electors are chosen by the state party organizations

• almost all states are winner-take-all:– candidate who receives the highest popular vote in the

state gets all of that state’s electoral votes• Electors convene in December and deliver their

votes to the president of the Senate (the vice president), who officially announces the majority winner at the opening of the congressional session in January

• if no candidate receives a majority of the electoral votes (at least 270), the members of the House of Representatives vote, with each state delegation having one vote

The Last Battle: The Electoral College

• This system has received an enormous amount of criticism– gives an unfair advantage to states with larger

populations• have a greater number of electoral votes at stake,

larger states and their policy concerns receive more attention from presidential candidates

– candidate may need to win in only a few large states to win the election

– neglects the less populous states (although George W. Bush used a small state strategy to win the presidency in 2000 and 2004)

– Because most large states also have large cities, the system is biased in favor of urban voters.

– it is possible to win the popular vote but lose the election because of the electoral votes• happened to Al Gore, who won the popular vote in

2000