Poli Sci Exam 2

Why does government action seem at odds from public opinion

1. Framers knew a single popular opinion would be rare

2. Factions: “Strong opinions by many publics”

3. Public is not very well-informed on government policies

4. It is difficult to know what the public truly thinks

Public opinion

Measured by polls

Poll

1. Properly drawn sample

2. Carefully worded questions

Random sampling

Process through which any given voter or adult has equal chance of being interviewed, stratified first

Stratifying

List of all geographical units in the country, stratifies them by population then selects people at random from each stratum proportional to its population

Exit poll

Interviews w/ randomly selected voters as they leave polling places on election day in a representative sample of voting districts, proven to be pretty accurate

2 things that sway poll results

1. Question wording: Specific phrases used to describe policies in survey questions, sway results when over-simplified

2. Question order

Political socialization

A child’s political views are influenced by parents/home life, social media/news, life events, demographics, etc.

Impressionable years hypothesis (political-socialization)

Young people’s political attitudes are very strongly influenced by what happens during their formative years (mid-teens to twenties)

Age gap

Young people are much more diverse and tend to be more liberal, more supportive of gun control, safety net, etc.

Gender gap

Women hold more liberal social welfare and foreign policy attitudes than men

Race/ethnicity gap

Black Americans have been overwhelmingly more democratic since the Civil Rights Movement, more likely to say legacies of slavery and racism still harm them today and want more policies to overcome this, also say criminal justice system is unfair towards POC

Largest minority group

Latinos, less “single-opinion” among voters because they come from a diverse array of central/south American countries and there are many generational differences

Religious partisan stereotype

Religious people are more conservative, which is true some of the time for issues like same sex marriage and abortion. They don’t however hold a specific stance on immigration, and tend to be more against the death penalty and for environmental spending

Education gap

College degrees trend toward the Democratic party, trends without college degrees are towards Republicans. Could be because democrats lost power and were replaced with high education voters and factors that lead people to education predict more liberal opinions

The 1%

Very wealthy tend to be less supportive of social safety net, government health insurance, redistribution via taxes, etc.

Partisianship

People’s attachment to their political party

American public: Sorted but not polarized

People align with issue positions with a certain party but can still also align with the other party’s views on different issues

Affective polarization

Even if Republicans and Democrats are not very far apart on some issues, they have come to increasingly dislike/distrust one another

Political ideology

Consistent beliefs about what policies government should pursue (more or less, can sometimes be weak)

How is political ideology measured

1. How frequently people use political categories (liberal, conservative)

2. How accurately one can predict people’s views on an issue based on their view of another issue

What portion of Americans are consistently liberal or conservative

1/3

Ideology is more for ____ than ____

Elites than voters

Political elites (activists)

People who hold office, run for office, work in campaigns, etc. More likely to display ideological consistency because they are better informed and surrounded by like minded peers

Neuristics

Shortcuts to make well-informed decisions

Ephemera

No lasting significance

Many political opinions are based on ________

Ephemera and heuristics

Why don’t policies always follow major will

1. Minorities can be more politically engaged

2. Government policy is more responsive to preferences of economic elites rather than regular citizens

2 things not measured by polls

1. Opinion saliency: even if public opinion exists, we cannot measure how much people care

2. Opinion stability: degree in which public opinion will be consistent (it will not always be consistent)

Voting age population (VAP)

All US residents 18+

Voting eligible population (VEP)

Excludes residents who are not eligible to vote, more accurate

Lower turnout

We have multiple election days, logistics problems, and many people disagree with our two party system

Registered non-voters

Not interested, did not like candidates or campaigns, or too busy/scheduling conflicts

Motor-voter law (1993)

Allows people in all 50 states to register to vote when applying for driver’s licenses

Automatic voter-registration laws

Some states, automatically registering all eligible citizens to vote unless they explicitly opt out

GOTV drive tatics

“Social pressure” increases participation, subjects are told before the election that whether they vote in the election is public record, and after the election the campaign will inform their neighbors if they voted

Voter turnout symptom of “good health or “political disease”

Could make people upset about how things are run if 100% of adults registered and voted

State to federal control for voting

Constitution meant for states to control time, place, and manner of elections. It shifted from state to federal control to prevent disenfranchisement, the 15th amendment had little impact in South due to interpretation (literacy tests, poll taxes, grandfather clause), VRA, 19th, 23rd, 26th amendment

Non traditional election day voting

1. Early

2. Absentee

3. Mail

Early voting

People can cast ballots 3-46 days before election day

Absentee voting

By mail for military personnel, their voting-age dependents, US citizens living overseas, and certain other voters (must have specific reason)

Mail voting

Ballot automatically mailed to every eligible citizen, provide locations for voters to turn ballots in on election day

Decline in voter turnout (real vs. apparent)

Real: Result of decline of popular interest in elections and weakening of the competitiveness between the 2 major parties

Apparent: Although elections were more popular in the 19th century, parties were no more democratic, voters might have just been more easily manipulated

Australian ballot

Government printed ballot of uniform size/shape that was cast in secret to replace the old party-printed ballots cast in public

Voter identification laws

Critics argue these laws are unfair because many people do not have a photo ID and POC are more likely to be asked for ID. There is hardly ever any actual voter fraud

Party of “non-voters”

Mirrors diverse and divided population that goes to the polls. Argues that even if everyone voted, outcome would change only by a small amount

Complete inactives

22%, rarely vote, don’t join organizations or talk politics, little formal education, relatively young

Complete activists

11%, highly education, high income, middle aged, engage in all forms of politics

What drives voter participation

1. “Raw ingredients”

2. Psychological motivators

3. Habit forming

4. Politicians

5. Experience w/ gov issues

Raw ingredients

Resources needed to participate in politics like time, money, civic skills, employment, education

Psychological motivators

Efficacy (belief that your voice matters) and mobilization (social pressure)

Participation habit forming

More likely to vote in future elections if you vote in the previous

Single issue voters

Elderly much more so than youth, because politicians respond to a lot of single issues like Medicare and social security

Experience with government issues

How you have been influenced by government issues throughout your life

Political party

Group that seeks to elect candidates to public office by supplying them with a “party identification” by which they are known to the electorate

Political parties include

1. Organization: recruits and campaigns for candidates

2. Label: in the mind of voters

3. Set of leaders: try to organize/control the legislative and executive branches of government

Why are parties in the US weaker than other parliamentary democracies

1. In other systems, parties control access to the ballot, and here, voters select their party’s candidates in primaries

2. In parliamentarians, leg/exec branches are unified rather than divided like they are in America

3. Federal government in US decentralizes political authority and thus decentralizes political organizations

Primary elections

Elects what candidates will run under each party, closed or open

Closed primary

Only registered members of a party can vote for the nominee (used in MN)

Open primary

Voters do not need to declare party affiliation before going to polls

Top two primary

All candidates compete on one primary election ballot, and top 2 candidates regardless of party advance to the general election

Delegates

Pledged: awarded through presidential primaries and caucuses w/ understanding that they will support a particular candidate at the convention

Super (unpledged): Not bound to vote for a specific candidate

For any candidate to win they must have support from both delegates

Invisible primary

Attracting key party and interest group figures to your camp so they can settle on the best nominee

Split-ticket vote

Different parties throughout entire ballot

Straight-ticket vote

One party throughout entire ballot

“Those who register when the process is costless are less likely to vote”

If it’s effortless, then people are more likely to forget or push it off

Efficacy cycle

Care about in issue → vote → gain influence on public policy → efficacy

Caucus

Meeting of like-party members

Party realignment

1. Control shift

2. Regional Shift

3. Party ideology shift

Control shift (1932)

Hoover, great depression Complete swap of majority because of a new issue/dissatisfaction with status quo

Regional shift (ie. 1960)

Kennedy, votes flip regions

Party ideology shift

Ideas on the parties shift (states’ rights, NRA gun laws, blue collar labor union)

Elections here vs. abroad

Here: Party may help recruit you, but candidates themselves need to start and run their own campaigns. Both candidates and the party matter to win.

Abroad: Winning nomination for parliament involves an organizational decision (looking you over, allowing you to run, and name on list of candidates) and campaigns are almost entirely a contest between parties

Biggest challenge in primary

Most candidates are largely unknown to the public so voters’ attitudes about them are very malleable

Media in primaries

Gives the candidate exposure, increasing their name recognition and favorability, leading people to then investigate them more deeply

Non-incumbents

Not up for re-election so most people have not heard of them

Bandwagon effect

Winning once convinces others that you can do it again, changing the dynamic of the election. Obama won in an upset in Iowa Caucus (2008) which convinced voters he was electable

Front-loading primaries

States want their primary to “count” so they hold them earlier, votes have more of a “say.” It benefits parties but harms voters because voters have less time to learn about the candidates

Battleground/swing states

Either candidate could win the state, people want to campaign there because it is competitive and can shift the electoral votes

What are the battleground/swing states

Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Georgia, Arizona

3 ways campaigns matter

1. Assigning credit/blame

2. Activating partisanship

3. Judge of Character

Assigning credit/blame

1. Economy is central predictor of overall health of the nation

2. Retrospective voting: Votes look back on previous admin and decide if they deserve another term

3. Prospective voting: Vote for who has best policies to handle current issues

Activating partisianship

Campbell: “Campaigns remind Democrats why they are Democrats rather than Republicans” and vice versa. Both parties must still count independent voters to win, base alone is not enough

Judge of character

Valence issue: Everyone agrees, question is if the candidate embraces the view (ie. leadership)

Positional issue: Rival candidates have opposing views on a question that also divides the voters

Television ads

Appeal to emotions and make negative attacks, don’t truly work because you cannot persuade to victory and they spend lots of money (spiral effect) without changing the outcome simply trying to match the other campaign’s ads

Campaign events

Important because the candidates speak for themselves, includes nominating conventions and presidential debates

Nominating conventions

One-sided, favorable, “sustained-bump”

Presidential debate

Come up later in campaigns, sway voters less because they’ve already made up their minds

Incumbent

Running for re-election, has an advantage and usually wins most votes

Incumbancy advantage

1. Members ability to serve their constituency

2. Claire credit for projects/name recognition

3. Fundraising advantage

4. Franking

Franking

Free postage to constituents

Redistricting

Reapportionment of congressional seats after a US census

Gerrymandering

Drawing a district boundary in a bizzare/unusual shape to make it easy for the candidate of one party to win that district’s election

Surge and decline phenomenon

“On years”: President picks up seats and has a surge in support for their party

“Off years”: Seats are more difficult for re-runner, decline in support for party of president.

HOUSE IS MORE LIKELY TO FLIP THAN SENATE

Coattails

Voters vote for the same party members of the president’s party

American campaigns - More $

• 2 Phases: individual ads (primaries)/party ads (general)

• Longer (Japan for example only has 12 days to advertise by law)

• Campaign finance limits have been weakened

Source of campaign $

• Private donors: PACS (limited), individuals (limited), candidates (unlimited)

• Government:

  • General election: $1.25 mil offered in government funding if candidate agrees to accept only that donation

  • Political contribution refund program: Up to $75 for any recognized candidate (MN only)

Federal Election Commission (FEC)

• Disclose campaign finance info

• Enforce financing laws on candidate campaigns

Hard money

$ given to a specific candidate or party by an individual or PAC (must support 5+ candidates). Corporations cannot donate hard money, it is limited by law and must be disclosed by campaign to FEC

Soft money

Intermediate between donation and campaigns, given by PAC, unlimited