ELECTIONS
AND ACCOUNTABILITY
(Weeks
12-13)
(Note: these are actual
class notes, valuable to those having an excused class absence, or those
wishing to review their class notes for the test. Double spaced notes reflect
subjects that are so important that they are likely to be asked about on a test.)
Presidential
general elections are fascinating, and professors at the University of
Michigan in the 1950s proposed a model seeking to
explain what affects voters’ choices in presidential general elections. First, party identification
is extremely important; most people just vote for the candidate nominated by
the party that they psychologically identify with. Therefore, if you are in a
party era with a majority party, like the Democrats were in 1932-1968, that party
will usually win the presidential election. Short term forces like candidates and issues can
also be important, as the minority party must nominate a very popular candidate
or seize on a popular issue to overcome being the underdog. Here’s how this
model applies to the presidential elections from 1948 through 1968, when
Democrats had the advantage in numbers of voters.
In 1948,
President Harry Truman faced high unemployment as our troops had come home, and
everyone expected him to lose to Republican Dewey. Truman kept emphasizing the
popular New Deal economic issues like Social Security and
protection of the worker, and blasted the Republicans as the party of the rich
and big business. He ended up winning, uniting the majority Democratic Party
on the popular economic issues that had made them the majority. This use of the
New Deal economic issues to unite the Democrats was especially impressive
because two other Democrats ran in the
general election- liberal Henry Wallace who claimed that Truman was too tough
on the Soviets, and segregationist South Carolina Governor Strom Thurmond, who
opposed the first-time inclusion of a civil rights plank in national Democratic
party’s platform (Thurmond carried a few southern states like Mississippi.).
In 1952,
again there was public dissatisfaction, this time with the Korean War, the
spread of communism (mainland China had fallen to the communists), and
allegations of corruption in Truman’s administration. Republicans nominated
the war hero Eisenhower, who accepted the New Deal programs.
The issue of dissatisfaction and a popular candidate won it
for Republicans. Yet Democrats remained the majority party, controlling Congress
for all except two years of the Eisenhower presidency.
In 1956,
Eisenhower won re-election because of his great personal popularity (I
like Ike was the campaign slogan, using Disney cartoon characters carrying
signs), and the issues of peace and prosperity. In both years, you
can see how the short-term factors helped the minority party win election, the
only time they won during this period of 1932-1968. An interesting fact about
Eisenhower’s leadership was how he always told his advisors, “Don’t even mention
politics or partisanship when we make our decisions; we only do what is in the
best interests of the nation.” (This is obviously a far cry from the recent
political situation. Trump in his first term kept talking about how popular he
was: “I have the highest ratings in history, 91% approval among Republicans.”
Uh, what about the majority of Americans who are Democrats or Independents?
President Biden was criticized as being a captive of the left-wing extreme of
his party, and he gave a very partisan campaign-like State of the Union address
in his last year in office.)
In 1960,
in a very narrow popular vote win (but a more comfortable electoral vote
victory), Democrat John Kennedy beat Republican Vice President Nixon. Kennedy
unified the majority Democratic party by picking a southerner
as Vice President, Senate Majority Leader Lyndon Johnson. Kennedy defused his
Catholicism problem by winning the West Virginia primary (a very Protestant
state) and speaking at a conference of Protestant ministers in Texas and
pledging a separation of church and state. He also came across very well in the
televised debates, being cool, calm, articulate, and thoughtful; Nixon had
shifty eyes, looked pale with too much makeup, had a 5 o’clock shadow, and
didn’t even use all of his time.
In 1964,
now President Johnson won a landslide over very conservative Arizona Senator
Barry Goldwater. Goldwater was viewed by voters as too conservative, as he
threatened to repeal the New Deal by making Social Security voluntary, selling
the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority electric generating system) to private
industry, and eliminating farm price supports; he wanted to win in Vietnam; he
talked loosely about the possible use of nuclear weapons. So, the majority
party won, and even the issues were with them as Goldwater was
seen as too conservative.
In 1968,
our nation faced a bloody Vietnam War, campus protests against
it, urban riots, rising crime, and rising inflation. Republican
Nixon played on this issue of dissatisfaction with how things were and beat
Johnson’s Vice President, a liberal from Minnesota Hubert Humphrey (previously,
he had been mayor of Minneapolis, the author of the 1948 Democratic civil
rights platform, and then a U.S. Senator). A third-party candidate was
segregationist Alabama governor George Wallace who carried a few Deep South
states like Mississippi based on his being even tougher than Nixon on
protesters. So the issues of dissatisfaction helped the
minority Republican Party; but Democrats were still the dominant party, as they
kept control of Congress until 1980.
We now
move into the more modern age, as the left-wing takeover of the Democratic
Party in 1972 with McGovern’s nomination showed how both parties were
increasingly dominated by their more ideological wings. Voters (who are more
middle-of-the-road) found themselves increasingly motivated by issues and
candidates, and as Democrats lost their national majority in the population in
terms of party identification, control of Congress itself was up for grabs. The
next section is a likely exam question.
In 1972,
Democrats moved left (liberal), and nominated liberal anti-war Senator
George McGovern. He pledged to end the war immediately, and said he
would “crawl to Hanoi” (capital of communist North Vietnam) to bring our POWs
home. He wanted to slash defense spending and condemned our more authoritarian
allies. The Republicans called him the Triple A candidate- in favor of acid,
amnesty (for Vietnam draft evaders who had fled to Canada), and abortion. Even
the AFL-CIO labor union for the first time in their history refused to endorse
the Democrat. McGovern’s Vice-Presidential nominee, Senator Thomas Eagleton,
even resigned from the ticket after news that he had had an electric shock
treatment for clinical depression. Nixon had pursued Détente (improved
relations) with the now split Communist giants, visiting both China and the
USSR (Soviet Union, Russia and its Soviet Republics) in the election year, and
announcing a peace agreement in Vietnam. Nixon won re-election in a landslide.
The minority party won because the majority had picked a weak candidate who was
too liberal.
In 1976, more
centrist Jimmy Carter reunited his Democratic party and beat
Jerry Ford (who had become President after Nixon resigned). His running mate
was Minnesota Senator, liberal Walter Mondale, so this was a nice balanced
ticket with Carter being a southerner and centrist. Indeed, not only did Carter
win the more liberal northern states, but he also won all except one of the
southern states. There was also some dissatisfaction with Ford’s pardon of
Nixon, and with a weak economy (Carter called it the misery index,
which added the inflation and unemployment rates). While Ford gained ground in
the final days as he attacked Carter as a big-spending liberal, Ford then
reinforced the public image of him being clumsy and dumb when he misspoke at a
debate: “Eastern Europe is not under Soviet domination, and it never will be in
a Ford administration.” (The USSR had conquered all of Eastern Europe after
World War 2 with its tanks and had installed puppet communist regimes.)
The 1980 election
was a clear case of dissatisfaction, as the issues of the Iranian
hostage situation (they held our diplomats for a year), the Soviet
invasion of Afghanistan, high unemployment during
the recession, and 13% annual inflation obviously hurt
President Carter. In the one televised debate near the end of the campaign,
Carter kept trying to paint the conservative Reagan as an extremist. Reagan
just grinned, did an aw-shucks routine, sighed and responded, “There you go
again,” and rebutted the claims. Reagan said that in the 1960s he
had supported an alternative free market Eldercare plan instead of
Medicare, and he later sought to eliminate nuclear weapons from the face of the
earth. At the debate end, he summed it up by saying: “Are you better off today
than you were four years ago? Can you buy as much for your dollar as you could
then? If so, vote for my opponent. If not, give my program a chance.” Reagan
won a landslide, and even swept in a Republican-controlled Senate for the first
time since 1954.
In 1984 Reagan
won re-election in a landslide with a booming economy. His campaign
ad was an optimistic “Morning in America” film that highlighted this booming
economy, and a stronger America militarily, with the Lee Greenwood song God
Bless the U.S.A. sung in the background. Reagan had also become
personally popular. He worked with Democratic House Speaker Tip
O’Neill, a fellow Irishman, and granted interviews with hostile media outlets
(“Well, I don’t think I changed any minds, but at least I tried.”). When
73-year-old Reagan stumbled over his words in the first debate, and was then
asked in the second debate whether he was too old to be President any longer,
he joked: “I am not going to make age an issue in this campaign. I am not going
to make an issue of my opponent’s relative youth and inexperience.” Even Mondale
laughed. Democrat Mondale picked the first woman Vice Presidential running mate
of a major party, Congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro. It didn’t help, as Reagan
won every state except for Mondale’s Minnesota and the District of Columbia. It
should also be noted that by 1984 the numbers of Democratic and Republican
party identifiers among voters was essentially tied, so issues and candidates
were now clearly the decisive elements in election outcomes.
In 1988
Reagan’s Vice President George Herbert Walker Bush beat Massachusetts governor and
the son of Greek immigrants Michael Dukakis. Bush staged a come-from-behind
victory by tearing down his opponent, labeling him as being too
liberal. Dukakis was a member of the liberal ACLU
(American Civil Liberties Union), he had vetoed a pledge of allegiance bill for
public schools (fearing a 1st amendment establishment lawsuit),
he had a furlough program for inmates (one of them, Willie Horton, had
terrorized a young couple on his furlough), and Dukakis made defense spending a
low priority. Even reporters felt he had an image problem, and one of them
asked him at a debate: “Governor Dukakis, if your wife Kitty were raped and
murdered, would you still oppose the death penalty.” Dukakis while
smirking responded, “Yes, I would. I don’t think it is a deterrent to crime.
We’ve done other things to reduce crime in Massachusetts, such as….” Bush’s
response with emotion was: “I disagree with my opponent. I think there are some
crimes that are so heinous, such as the killing of a police officer, that they
merit the death penalty.”
In 1992,
as we continue this modern era of issues and candidates being the dominant
forces deciding elections (since the two parties are tied in adherents), the
key issue was public dissatisfaction over the economic recession and
high unemployment. The media kept talking about the bad economic
news, even though things were starting to recover. Democrat Clinton stressed
this issue with the campaign slogan, “It’s the economy, Stupid!” The aloof
President Bush didn’t help his case; in a town hall debate when asked
about how he could understand the plight of average people, he said he didn’t
understand the question, and then glanced at his watch. Clinton walked into the
audience, and said, “I feel your pain. I come from a small town in Arkansas,
Hope. I know people personally affected by the recession.” Clinton won. It was
also kind of interesting that he didn’t seek to politically balance his ticket,
as he picked a Vice President whom he thought could actually be President,
Senator Al Gore of Tennessee (who years later won the Nobel Prize for his fight
against climate change).
In 1996 Clinton
won re-election with a booming economy that was so great that
even some Republicans were asking themselves, “Why should I vote for a change;
I have money in my pocket?” Clinton talked about his domestic programs as being
a Bridge to the 21st Century, kind of a knock on
his opponent Senator Bob Dole who was so old that people
thought of him as a Bridge to the 19th Century. The 73-year-old
Dole didn’t help himself when he was bending over a wooden railing at a
campaign rally to shake hands and the railing broke and he fell into the
street; lying on his back, his eyes looked stunned, but he got up pretty fast.
Saturday Night live had some great skits about Dole! Another problem is that
Dole had a history of being sarcastic, bitter, and mean. In the
1976 Vice Presidential debates (President Ford had dumped Rockefeller and put
the conservative Dole on the ticket) he accused the Democrats of being “the
party of War. Every war in this century, started by a Democrat. World War 1,
Wilson. World War 2, FDR. Korea, Truman. Vietnam, Johnson. All Democrat wars
started by Democrat Presidents.” So issues and candidates made the difference.
(Personally, I liked Dole and even voted for him; he was a war hero, lost the
use of his right arm, always carried a pencil in it so people wouldn’t try to
shake it; he was in the Senate so long that he became Senate Republican Leader,
and his fellow senators rated him as the most effective senator in that body.)
The 2000 election
seemed to be all about the candidates. Bush was a Republican, but he was a
“compassionate conservative.” Gore was a liberal Democrat, and he didn’t talk
much about President Clinton because of the President’s sex scandal, even
though the economy was booming and Clinton was popular! Gore bombed in the
debates. In the first one, he acted like Hermione Granger in Harry Potter. Bush
would start answering a question, and I would hear a sigh. Then I would hear
another sigh. It was an impatient Al Gore who acted like he knew all the
answers, and wanted to answer every question, and do all the talking. Saturday
Night live did a great skit making fun of Gore, and the Gore campaign manager
even showed that skit to Gore to try to make him more self-aware. In the next
debate on foreign policy, Bush was calmly sitting on a stool and talking, and
Gore walked right up to him, and Bush stared him down. Again, creepy! So Gore had
a problem of perceived arrogance. But why did Bush lose
the popular vote (while winning the electoral vote)? Well, the weekend before
the election, it came out that before being Texas governor he had had a DUI
arrest; he never publicly admitted it because he didn’t want to be a bad
role model for his two teenage daughters. And so the election was so close that
it was up to cliffhanger Florida, as plane loads of lawyers from both parties
flew down to Florida, and the Supreme Court finally decided the election
dispute in Florida.
Well,
the 2004 election was another reality TV program type of
election. Bush never did find those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Saddam
Hussein had lost them during the first Gulf War, but he wanted to appear to be
the big bully in the Mideast so he never admitted that he didn’t have them. Democrats
nominated the liberal Senator from the most liberal state in the nation, John
Kerry of Massachusetts. Even though he had served in Vietnam, Kerry returned as
a bitter anti-war activist. He even joined with a group that accused American
soldiers of committing war atrocities against civilians. The impression I got
was that the public viewed Bush as a leader in the fight against
terrorism. He would keep America safe. And he didn’t wait on
other nations’ support, and wait for United Nations permission to take military
action. Bush won a narrow victory, benefitting from the anti-terrorism issue.
What a
difference 4 years makes! By 2006 Americans had become fed up with our endless-seeming
involvement in Iraq, and Democrats gained control of both chambers of Congress.
Then, the financial community nearly collapsed, as they had made too many
questionable loans, and in 2008 we had to begin bailing them
out with federal money. Democrats nominated Barack Obama, an articulate, thoughtful (he
paused and thought before he spoke), organized, and passionate (“Yes,
we can.”) candidate. He was very concerned over income inequality. Senator John
McCain was an honored war hero who had been a POW in Vietnam (He showed so much
character that he refused to be released early, because others had been held in
prison longer; that’s when his jailors crippled his shoulder.), but he looked
old as he stumbled around the debate stage. Obama won due to his positive
personal characteristics plus the issue of dissatisfaction over the financial
meltdown. Obama was also a kind of post-racial candidate, as he didn’t
stress the race issue, and his race appeared to have no effect on voters.
Well,
in 2012 Obama was re-elected President. Polls
showed that his issues supporting the middle class helped him,
as did voters’ perception that he cared about the average person. He had empathy.
Republicans nominated a rich businessman Mitt Romney, former governor of
Massachusetts (his RomneyCare for that state was
actually similar to ObamaCare!). Romney was
a Mormon who gave a lot of money to his church; he stuck by his wife’s side
when she had cancer; he organized fellow business leaders to save the Salt Lake
City Olympics. But he was weak in the foreign policy debate, and
didn’t counter Obama’s implication that terrorism wasn’t much of a problem
anymore (a terrorist attack had just killed our Libyan ambassador at Benghazi
city, and Obama called ISIS the JV league of terrorists), or Obama’s mocking of
Romney’s concern over Russia (“Mitt, the Soviet Union doesn’t even exist
anymore” said Obama). The rich guy Romney then was caught by a waiter’s
cellphone, as the Republican nominee asked for donations from rich people:
“You know, 47% of the American people doesn’t even pay taxes, and they’re not
going to vote for me.” That 47% comment that gave the
impression that Romney thought that nearly half of the American people were
freeloaders was the kiss of death (actually, they still pay other taxes, such
as state sales taxes, property taxes). Do any of you remember anything about
these Obama elections? How did you feel about those elections?
And now
we come to 2016. Nobody expected a Reality TV star with no
political experience like Donald Trump to win the presidency,
or even get the Republican nomination. However, as an outsider he
played on public discontent with politicians, so he hung derogatory
labels on his opponents- lyin’ Ted (Senator
Cruz of Texas), little Marco (Senator Rubio of Florida had desperately reached
for a glass of water when giving a televised rebuttal to an Obama speech),
low-energy Jeb (another Bush, this time the governor of Florida; again, some
truth, I saw a split screen with a large Trump rally versus Bush talking like a
professor to a small crowd of people sitting in a living room somewhere), and
of course Crooked Hillary (Clinton). Clinton was also overconfident,
not expecting to lose normally Democratic states like Michigan and
Pennsylvania, so she didn’t campaign there much. Trump was not a normal free
enterprise, free trade Republican, as his willingness to engage in trade
wars and his promotion of American businesses helped him with blue
collar workers in these Rust Belt states. Clinton was also hurt by her e-mail
scandal, which federal prosecutors looked into (without any indictment).
Clinton’s final problem was arrogance, as she brushed off “half” of
Trump supporters (when addressing an LGBTQ crowd) as “racists, sexist,
homophobic, Islamophobic, a basket of deplorables.” An interesting contrast-
Clinton had had some Hollywood types lined up for her election night party; the
next day, Trump was on the phone putting pressure on American business
executives to keep their factories in the U.S. and to open up new ones. So,
what did you think about that campaign? What did you think about the Trump “groping”
open mike comment? When that came out, that weekend one-third of Senate
Republicans called on Trump to be kicked off of the ticket. He fought back by
inviting all of the women who had accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment
(and sexual assault) to sit in the front row of the next debate. So, Trump wins
in a dirty campaign where voters get to choose between two unpopular
candidates.
Biden’s
victory over Trump in 2020 wasn’t a big surprise. Two indicators of
likely presidential outcome are presidential job rating and the economy, and
Trump always had more disapprovals than approvals in his job rating, plus the
economy crashed after the nationwide coronavirus shutdown (though it later
improved). Biden was pretty universally seen as a nice guy, who showed his
concern for American worries over the coronavirus pandemic by preaching mask
wearing and holding socially-distanced car rallies. So weak Trump job
rating, scary pandemic, nice guy Democrat helped elect Biden. Biden
won the electoral vote and the national popular vote. His vice president Kamala
Harris made history as the first woman and person of color as VP.
Trump’s
victory in 2024 to become the first President to serve non-consecutive
terms since Grover Cleveland in the last two decades of the 1800s was also
understandable. Biden had presided over an inflation rate that was more
than double the rate during Trump’s first term (it hit 9% one year), and weak border
enforcement produced a surge of illegal immigrants (Biden refused to install
any more of the wall, even though part had been paid for and it just lay on the
ground waiting to be installed; his Vice President looked like a hostage as she
unemotionally told people in Central America than our border was closed; Border
Patrol agents were accused of using whips to keep migrants from entering the
U.S., even though the “whips” were actually just reins used to guide their
horses to block the migrants). Trump also effectively blasted the Biden
administrations left-wing orientation by criticizing his pro-transexual
policies in high school athletics.
A summary of these
elections and their outcomes follows:
1948- Truman (D) - 50%
- New Deal domestic issues (I), whistle stop campaign key,
Democratic majority (P).
Dewey (R) - 45%- popular governor (C), dissatisfaction (I).
2 Independents: Strom Thurmond and Henry Wallace- 2% each- divided Dems.
1952 - Eisenhower (R) -
55% - war hero (C). Nixon Checker's Speech defuses issue. Dems blasted with
Korea, Communism, corruption slogan (I), Dissatisfaction very
important.
Stevenson (D) - 45% -
1956 - Eisenhower (R) -
57% - personal popularity (C); peace and prosperity (I). Satisfaction
Stevenson (D) - 43% - Democrat (P).
1960 - Kennedy - (D) - 50%
- young, charismatic (C); W.V. primary and Texas ministers' conference defuses
religion, debate defuses youth; time to move ahead (I);
Democrat (P).
Nixon - (R) - 50% - popular VP, knowledgeable (C). (Debates hurt him)
1964 - Johnson (D) - 61% -
Democrat (P); centrist (I); incumbent (C).
Goldwater (R) - 39% - too conservative (I); extreme, impulsive
(C); numerous right-wing comments are disastrous. Own convention deeply divided.
1968 - Nixon (R) - 44% -
Vietnam, unrest, crime, inflation (I). Nixon plays on Dissatisfaction with
TV ads.
Humphrey (D) - 43% - Democrat (P). Divided Chicago convention hurts Dems.
Wallace (I) - 13% - seeks blue collar support.
1972 - Nixon (R) - 61% -
world leader, prosperity (I); popular (C). Satisfaction.
McGovern (D) - 39% - extreme liberal (I). Numerous liberal
statements hurts him, Humphrey attacks in bitter Democratic nomination battle,
own V.P. resigns after admitting shock treatments.
1976 - Carter (D) - 51% -
Democrat (P); stagnant economy, pardon (I). Dissatisfaction .
Ford debate blunder about East Europe.
Ford (R) - 49% - Conservatism helps (I).
1980 - Reagan (R) - 51% -
Iran, Afghanistan, inflation, recession (I). Dissatisfaction.
Carter poor leadership (C). Reagan rebuts extremist charge with "there you
go again."
Carter (D) - 41% -
Anderson, John (Indep)- 7%
1984 - Reagan (R) - 59% -
peace and prosperity (I), Morning in America message; likeable person
(C). Satisfaction
Mondale (D) - 41% - Democrat (P). 1st woman VP-Ferraro.
1988 - Bush (R) - 54% -
peace and prosperity (I). Negative campaigning, Willie Horton.
Dukakis (D) - 46% - too liberal (I); uninspiring (C). (Debate-anti-death
penalty, iceman)
1992 - Clinton (D) - 43% -
moderate "New Democrat" (I). Dissatisfaction hurt
Bush. Bush aloof at debate, Clinton slogan, "It's the economy,
stupid".
Bush (R) - 38% - recession hurts (I).
Perot (Indep) - 19% -
1996 - Clinton (D) - 50% -
Good economy, domestic (I); "Bridge to 21st century"
target's Dole age, stresses "children" word. Satisfaction
Dole (R) - 41% - Old, uncaring (C). Dole falls off podium. (Reps. Keep
Congress)
Perot (I) - 9% -
2000 - Bush (R) - 50% -
personable (C), compassionate conservative (I)
Gore (D) - 50% - arrogant (C), Clinton scandal (I), too
liberal (I).
2004- Bush (R) - 51%
- Decisive terrorist fighter helps Bush (I)
Kerry (D) - 48% - Flip-flopping liberal charge hurts Kerry (I)
2008- Obama (D) - 53% -
Charismatic, articulate speaker (C)
McCain (R) - 46% - Financial Crisis, recession hurts (I)
2012- Obama (D)- 51%-
middle class theme, people like me empathy (I); 38-32
Democratic exit poll advantage (P).
Romney (R)- 48%- rich man, takers 47% comment lacks empathy (C).
2016- Trump (R)-
46%- outsider, dissatisfaction (I); trade protectionism (I).
Clinton, Hillary (D)- 48%- basket of deplorables (racists, sexists,
Islamophobic) comment lacks empathy (C).
2020- Biden (D)- 51%- safe cand, wins
moderates, independents (C); coronavirus (I).
Trump (R)- 47%- divisive figure (C).
2024- Trump (R)- 50%- inflation, open border hurts
incumbent administration (I).
Harris (D)- 48%-
Note: R denotes Republican
candidate, and D denotes Democrat.
I denotes issues, C is candidate, and P is party factor.
Numbers denote percentage of popular vote received.
(Source: Flanigan and
Zingale Political Behavior of the American Electorate Tenth Edition CQ
Press provides helpful information.)
So,
using the most prominent and important American elections as a case study, what
do these Presidential election outcomes tell us about the role of public
opinion in deciding who is our national leader? Is our electoral process
accountable to the American people? I’d say yes. When the nation has a majority
party that is backed by most Americans (measured by party identification), the
majority party usually wins the election, unless the minority party comes up
with a great candidate or plays on important issues. Thus, Democrats won every
Presidential election from 1932 until 1968, except for Eisenhower’s victories
in the 1950s. The issues of dissatisfaction produced victories for the minority
party in 1952 and in 1968, but those candidates were only moderately
conservative and did not seek to repeal popular New Deal programs. As the two
parties became closely divided in terms of the public’s partisan
identifications, you can see how issues and candidate traits dominate in
determining the election outcomes. Public dissatisfaction contributed to
incumbents Ford (1976), Carter (1980), Bush1 (1992), and Trump (2020) being
kicked out of office, economic satisfaction re-elected Reagan (1984) and
Clinton (1996). Public dissatisfaction also helped kick the incumbent Presidential
party out of office (2008, 2024). Specific
candidate factors and issues were important in the other elections, as well.
The 4th edition of the book Campaigns
and Elections by Sides, Shaw, Grossmann, and Lipsitz has some great charts
illustrating contemporary presidential election matters (pages 365-370). First,
voter interest in the presidential campaigns reached high points in the Obama
and Trump elections. Second, the two parties remain tied in party
identification of the population. Third, in this century over 90% of people
just vote for the presidential candidate of their party. Fourth, partisans in the
public like their own party and (in this century) increasingly dislike the
other party. Fifth, in the 2020 election, while Trump won the over $100,000
income group, he also won the non-college group.
What do you all think is going to
happen in the upcoming congressional election? Will the Republicans suffer a
midterm slump, or will they be able to retain control of Congress? Who will be
nominated by the two parties in 2028, and who do you think will win? Why??