AP Gov 5.4: Interest Groups

Presidential Elections

Stages of Election

• Exploratory Campaigning
    * Publicity, book tours (often an autobiography), fundraising, debates
• Intraparty Elections
    * Via either a direct primary or a caucus
• Presidential Nomination
    * Done through a party convention
    * Convention of delegates who nominate president, write platform, and set rules for next presidential election
• General Election and Electoral College

Selection of Candidates

• The race for the party nomination features decentralized races in each state
• Influenced by national party incentives determining delegate counts
• Selected via caucus or primary
• Incumbency advantage
    * “Native sons” and daughters (being from the state the primary is held)
    * Open and closed participation
• Logistics
    * Delegate distribution
    * Superdelegate vs. delegate
    * Calendar of elections
• Support for Candidates
    * Decentralized party system
    * Endorsement from party elites and special interest groups
    * Private financing and volunteers \n \n

Incumbency Advantage Phenomenon

• Acquisition of campaign skills, resources
• Better and campaigning
• Voter attitudes and name recognition towards incumbent
    * Prospective voting
    * Retrospective voting

Caucus vs. Primary States

• States run elections for party nominating contests by party request

Caucus

• Synchronous rounds of voting performed via persuasive dialogue
• Only registered members of the party can attend

Primaries

• Somewhat asynchronous
• One-time voting via ballots
• Features the Australian ballot
    * Paid for and distributed by state
    * Marked in private
    * Features all qualified candidates

Closed Primaries

• Only registered party members participate
• Lower turnout
• More responsive to party desires \n \n \n \n

Open Primaries

• Voters do not  necessarily have to register as a member of a party
• Public declaration v. private choice
• Can lead to “raiding the ticket”

Partisanship and Primaries

• Adaptations such as blanket primaries and rank-choice voting 
• Seek to limit partisanship

Timeline of Primaries

Parties

• Try to keep schedule manageable
• Carrot: allocate more delegates to go later
• Stick: take away delegates if states jump the line

States

• Want to go as early as possible
    * So that citizens can get a meaningful opportunity to influence outcome
    * Make money from ads and events
• Can lead to frontloading, a phenomenon where states stack primaries and caucuses early
• Frontloading allows for runaway candidates

Front-Runner

• Wants a quick nomination
• Can seek to influence the sequence of nomination events for their benefits

 \n

Candidates

• Want states that are relatively small,  have a homogenous population, and play to the voter coalition the candidate is courting
• Difficult for candidates to get media attention, acquire funding, establish infrastructure, and visit

Delegates

Allocation of Delegates

• Winner-Take-Alll vs. Proportional allocation
• Parties have different preferences

Winner-Take-All

• A faster path to declaring the nominee
• Candidate with plurality wins all delegates for a state
• Preferred by Republicans
• 50% of GOP delegates awarded by mid-March 2016

Proportional

• Extends the race and allows for more representation for coalitions
• Candidates awarded delegates based on proportion of vote above 15%
• Preferred by Democrats
• 50% of Democratic delegates awarded by mid-April 2016

Superdelegates

• Individuals in the party organization and party in the government who are granted the right to vote individual preference at the party nominating convention
• Found in both parties
    * Democratic Party: 15% in 2016
    * Republican Party: 7% in 2016
• Similar to pre-McGovern Fraser Commission delegates
    * Nominated regardless of the public’s preference for the presidential candidate

Delegates

• Number determined by party
• Delegate seats awarded by allocation rules set by state
• Vote as voters indicated preference on ballot
• Allowed to vote as a superdelegate if there is a brokered election

General Elections and Electoral College

Timing of Election

• Federal general elections required by Constitution on even numbered years
• Federal law: first Tuesday after first Monday in November

Election selects Electors

• How electors are chosen is left to states to determine by Constitution
• Most states award electors via winner-take-all
    * Winner of the plurality vote state-wide
    * Maine and Nebraska have a modified district distribution called the Congressional District Method

Relative Importance of State Contests

• Swing States/Battleground States
    * Distribution of electors and composition of voting means only competitive states with large populations matter
    * Include Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, Michigan
• Large, homogenous states have less significance in the race 
    * Texas, California, New York

Significance

• According to the Election Project’s analysis of the 2016 General Election:
• 43.1% of eligible voters did not vote
• Hillary Clinton received 65,853,625 votes
    * 48% of the voter turnout in total
    * 232 Electoral College Votes
    * >27% of the voting eligible population
• Donald Trump received 62,985,106 votes
    * 45.9% of the voter turnout in total
    * 306 Electoral College votes
    * <27% of the voting eligible population
• There is an advantage to geography over population in the distribution of electors, courtesy of the Great Compromise

Proposed Reforms

• Flawed Reforms:
    * Require Constitutional Amendment
    * Do not completely prevent an Electoral College loss of the popular vote winner
    * Inject a high degree of partisanship
• Most popular reform: National Popular Vote Compact
    * Requires the agreement of enough states so that the total of their electors is equivalent to the majority of the Electoral College
    * Surrenders state vote to winner of popular vote

 \n

Congressional Elections

Incumbent Behavior

• Incumbency Advantage Phenomenon
    * Name recognition 
    * Franking privilege (sending mail for free)
• Significant amounts of time spent fundraising
• “Congressmen spend 5-7 hours on the phone per day”

State Election Impacts

• Nomination Process   
    * Caucus, primary, convention, canvass?
    * Open vs. closed primaries
    * “Getting on the ballot”
• General Election
    * Ballot structure and election timing

Linkage Institutions

• Special interest groups and parties
• Give benefits to candidates
    * Endorsements
    * Mobilization
    * Going Public
    * Financing
    * Media coverage
    * Debates