(CHP 4) Making it: The Electoral Game

Campaign Strategies

Asking the Right Questions

  • The constituency itself shapes a candidate’s campaign

  • What sort of constituency do I seek to represent?

  • Are my name, face, and career familiar to voters?

  • What resources—money, group support, and volunteers—can I attract?

  • What leaders and groups are pivotal to a winning campaign?

  • What issues are uppermost in potential voters’ minds?

  • How can I reach those voters most effectively?

  • When should my campaign begin, and how should it be paced?

  • What are my chances of victory?

Choosing the Message

  • Forge a message that will stand out from all of the competing messages in the media marketplace

Campaign Resources

  • DCCC’s Recommended Daily Schedule

    • 4 Hours — Call Time

    • 1-2 Hours — Constituent Visits

    • 2 Hours — Committee/Floor

    • 1 Hour — Strategic Outreach Breakfasts, Meets & Greets, Press

    • 1 Hour — Recharge time

Campaign Finance Regulations

  • Distinguish between

    • (1) The rules governing how candidates can raise money for their own campaigns

    • (2) The rules governing the electioneering activities of organized entities not controlled by candidates

Independent Expenditures

  • Parties and organized groups also try to sway election outcomes via independent efforts in campaigns that are formally unconnected to candidates’ own efforts

Incumbents versus Challengers

  • Incumbents

    • Enjoy government-subsidized ways of reaching constituents

    • Tend to spend more money (overspending) when they’re uncertain or feel a high sense of risk

  • Challengers

    • Need to raise enough money to make their names and faces known to voters

    • Challengers spending = dramatic increase in chances of winning

Allocating Resources

  • Statewide Senate races are mass-media contests, with messages conveyed through;

    • Radio

    • TV

    • The Internet

  • Confident incumbents can channel their money into;

    • Telephone

    • Internet

    • Email

    • Door-to-door appeals

  • Lesser-known candidates must turn to broad-scale media such as;

    • Television

    • Radio

    • Newsletters

    • Billboards

Campaign Techniques

The Air War: Media and Other Mass Appeals

Positive Themes

  • Present candidates in a warm, human like way to which citizens can relate

Negatives Themes

  • Common in modern campaigning

The Ground War: Pressing the Flesh and Other Forms of Close Contact

  • Direct appeals through personal appearances

    • At:

      • Shopping centers

      • Factory gates

      • Door-to-door

    • Good for campaigns that are short on cash

  • Face-to-face campaigning is obligatory in some smaller communities

Who Votes?

  • Often fewer than 40 percent of eligible citizens normally take part in congressional elections

Reasons for Not Voting

  • Political analysts disagree over the reason for low voting levels

  • Citizen disaffection, apathy, and cynicism

  • Believe their vote won’t make a difference

  • Noncompetitive elections

  • Poor candidates

  • Contentious or negative campaigning

  • Young people

    • Have experienced fewer life experiences that propel older people toward activism

Biases of Voting

  • Biased in favor of people at the higher rungs of the social and generational ladders

    • Older

    • More affluent

    • Better educated

  • Social class has a stronger effect on voting participation than race, ethnicity, and gender

How Voters Decide

  • As a general rule, voters reach their decisions based on party attachments

Party Loyalties

  • Partisanship is the single most powerful factor in voters’ choices

  • Most people who claim to be independent are closeted partisans who leans toward one party or the other

Senate and House

  • Senate

    • Widely reported

    • Get a lot of media exposure

    • Less ability to shape their image

    • Voters get info largely through organized media

  • House

    • Fragmented media coverage

    • More ability to shape their image

    • Gain exposure through focused means — personal appearances, mailings, newsletters, and social media

Issues and Partisanship

  • Explanation for the gender gap probably lies in differing responses to political and social issues

Election Outcomes

Shifting Majorities

  • Smaller overall majorities controlling each chamber

    • “Tenuous majorities”

Regional Patterns

  • Democratic strength in:

    • Cities

    • Inner Suburbs

    • Majority-minority districts

  • Republican strength in:

    • Conservative white southerners

    • Great Plains

    • Mountain West

Polarized Parties, Polarized Voters?

  • Urban voters tend to:

    • Tolerant view of diversity of racial, ethnic, and sexual identities

9/11 Lecture Notes

  • Who wins and why?

  • Local factors (the traditional story)

    • What does “all politics is local” mean?

      • What this means is for members of Congress, success starts with making the people back home happy

      • And for congressional elections today, the adage remains true in many ways

      • For one, perhaps the biggest structuring force in who wins or loses a congressional election is the partisan lean of the district or state

      • The partisan lean of a congressional district is the single biggest predictor of who wins

      • Few districts are actually competitive

      • Added on top of this, is the incumbency advantage: an incumbent’s “over-performance” relative to his/her district’s partisanship

        • How much better an incumbent member of Congress running for re-election compared to what we would expect solely from the district’s partisan lean

        • Incumbency advantage is doing less of the work (in modern times) compared to other factors to an incumbent’s being re-elected (levels back to 1950s)

  • National factors (the new story)

    • Part of the reason the incumbency advantage has shrunk is that compared to earlier decades, another set of factors — national factors — have come to play a larger role in congressional elections outcomes

      • The president’s popularity

      • The state of the economy

      • Split-ticket voting has declined

      • Congressional elections now appear driven by national forces

    • Matters less what individuals reps bring to their district

  • Money

    • Congressional candidates spend a lot of time raising money

    • How much does fundraising actually matter?

    • Direct Benefits

      • Invest in campaign (staff, infrastructure, events…)

      • Purchase voter file (GOLD!)

    • Indirect Benefits

      • Dividend effect

        • Money brings in more money

      • Signaling effect

        • Bandwagon, snowball, horserace advantage

    • EMILY’s List

      • Early Money Is Like Yeast…It Makes the Dough ($) Rise

    • Political Action Committee (PAC): Pools campaign contributes from members and donates those funds to campaigns for or against candidates, ballot initiatives, or legislation

    • Challengers running for Congress against an incumbent do better the more money they raise and spend…incumbents do worse

    • History of Money

      • Federal Election Campaign Act of 1971 (FECA)

        • Major Provisions

          • Limits on amount of money a candidate can donate to their own campaign

          • Provides for criminal charges on money for personal favors

          • Imposes disclosure requirements for campaign

        • Amendments to FECA (1974)

          • Created the Federal Election Commission (FEC)

          • Limits on amount individuals can donate to candidates’ campaigns

          • Limited independent expenditures (IEs): Money in elections that is not made in coordination with any candidate

      • Buckley v. Valeo (1976)

        • Did the limits placed on electoral expenditures by FECA violate the First Amendment’s freedom of speech and association clauses?

          • Upheld restrictions on individuals

          • Struck down limits on: expenditures by candidates from their own personal or family resources and total campaign expenditures

          • The Court said it would interpret the part about independent expenditures to apply only to fund used for communications that “expressly advocate” the election or defeat of a candidate

      • Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act (McCain-Feingold) [2002]

        • 1) Issue: Prevalence of soft money in elections

          • Soft Money: Money for “party building” rather than to a candidate

          • Prohibited political parties from directly funding election campaign advertisements with soft money contributions; they had to be paid for with hard money

        • 2) Issue: Prevalence of issue advocacy ads

          • Prohibit issue ads that name candidate from airing 30 days before primary or 60 days before general election

          • Deemed “electioneering communication”

      • Citizens United (2010)

        • Citizens United (a non-profit corp) wanted to release “Hillary: The Movie,” a critical documentary of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton within 30 days of primary elections

        • The documentary would be considered express advocacy under FECA and an “electioneering communication” under McCain-Feingold

        • Supreme Court ruled that limiting “independent political spending” from corporations and other groups violates the First Amendment’s right to free speech

        • Consequences: Incorporated groups have the ability to spend unlimited funds in politics as long as it is independent of candidate

      • Rise of Super PACs & Dark Money

        • Super PACs: Independent expenditure-only pac; may engage in unlimited spending, may raise unlimited funds

          • Must report sources of donations to FEC

        • Dark Money Groups: Entities that are exempt from reporting their donor list (e.g., 501[c]s or “political” non-profits)

      • Summary

        • Dyadic Donations (Hard Money)

        • Donations to “Party Building” (Soft Money)

        • Independent Expenditures by Groups (Super PACs)

  • Campaign strategy

    • Choices candidates make on the campaign trail

    • More than anything, candidates have to choose a message: want to create a brand for the candidate that will appeal to voters in an effective way

    • The message candidates choose, however, is deeply influenced by the other factors we have discussed…

    • What goes into choosing a message:

      • Influenced by district factors

      • Influenced by national factors

      • Majority vs Minority party

      • Good/bad year for candidate’s party

      • Strengths/weaknesses

      • Positive vs. Negative

  • Summary

    • Local & nat. factors play a large role

    • Nat. factors increasing in importance

    • Candidates can try to control their fate:

      • Messaging

      • Campaign strategy