Paper 3 US comparative politics: elections 1
Redistricting: the 10 yearly process of re-drawing constituency boundaries to match populations after each census (normal and also done in the UK by an independent electoral comission)
Partisan redistricting: in the US the redistricting process is controlled by the ruling party in each state’s legislative and is done to benefit that party
Partisan redistricting is known as ‘gerry-madering’ after Governor Gerry in Massachusetts in the 19th century as boundaries drawn looked like salamander.
Examples
Partisan redistricting has been supercharged in 2026 when Trump ordered Texas to redistrict to gain the GOP (republican party) an extra 5 seats in the house. In response to this california redistricted for 5 seats for the democrats and Virginia on the 22nd april for 4 seats. Partisan redistricting normally doesn’t happen before an election as its supposed to be every 10 years.
22nd Feb 2026- Only 18 out of 435 races are competitive/ toss ups which means less than 5% of americans have a say on who’s in control as most districts are red or blue. Only election that matters is primary due to this
Key terminology
Governor: Each state has a governor and they are like the president of the state
Essay question: Evaluate the view that the presidential nomination process is ineffective (30)
The constitutional requirements
Natural born us citizen, must be 35 years old, residency qualification of 14 years
Case studies
Barack Obama and the Birthers 2008
Trump said Obama can’t be president because Obama’s dad was from Kenya and his middle name was Hussein. The birther movement was lead by Trump as he demanded to see Obama’s birth certificate.
Ted Cruz 2016- Trump used birther argument again as Ted Cruz was born in Canada (but had an american mother)
Nomination process has 4 parts
1- Invisible primary
2- Primaries (same time)
3- Caucuses (same time)
4 - National party convention
Invisible primary
Primary- where the public vote to decide each party’s candidate for the election (very democratic)
Takes place 2 years before the election
Candidates get themselves known by : Publishing books, Going on TV shows like the late show, Getting articles published about them in important newspapers like the Washington post.
What kind of runners are succesful?
Political experience - Buttigieg in 2020, ex mayor of south bend, indiana
or media celebrity - trump
Major party endorsement - Third party candidates like Ross Perot (1992) have all done badly in the electoral college
Personal characteristics - Male, Married/faithful
2012 Herman Cain dropped out of race due to alleged affair
Bill Clinton survived in 1992 despite allegations that he had an affair.
However Trump has celebrity rules applied to him not politician rules
Ability to raise a large amount of campaign finance
However trump relied on free media
Effective organisation
Being telegenic - Biden dropped out in 2024 due to disastrous TV debate performance