contents

 Political Parties in the United States

 BY JOHN F. BIBBY

 Presidential Nominations and American Democracy 

 BY STEPHEN J. WAYNE

 U.S. Election Procedures

 BY MICHAEL W. TRAUGOTT

 elections 2004 timeline

 Interview: Campaign 2004, with Thomas Mann

 BY PAUL MALAMUD

 Congressional Elections

 BY JOHN H. ALDRICH

 The Polls, the Pundits, & the Elections of 2004

 BY JOHN ZOGBY

 The State of Campaign Finance

 BY JOSEPH E. CANTOR

 Elections glossary

 Bibliography and Web sites

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V 1

This publication provides an introductory 

overview of the American electoral process for 

people who are not familiar with U.S. election 

practices and traditions. For “U.S. Elections 

2004,” we have asked seven experts, mostly 

political scientists, to explain significant aspects of 

the upcoming elections to international audiences 

who may have different ways of electing their 

government.

John F. Bibby begins the discussion by 

reviewing the role of political 

parties in the American 

system. Parties are not 

written into the U.S. 

Constitution (1789), 

but they have evolved 

since their origins in the 

early 1800s into a bedrock 

feature of U.S. democracy. Some 

have suggested that much of the stability 

of American government rests on the fact that 

two parties have been dominant for more than 

a century.

Next, Stephen J. Wayne explicates the long 

presidential campaign, in particular the 

nomination process. Again, several vital features 

of the American system – party nominating 

conventions and primary elections – are not 

provided for in the Constitution, but have 

resulted from an historical evolution rooted in 

the early years of the American republic. Michael 

W. Traugott then describes in detail how electoral 

institutions ensure fairness, discussing the 

procedures for registering voters, counting votes, 

and structuring a ballot.

Our interview with prominent political analyst 

Thomas Mann, of the Brookings Institution, 

deals most explicitly with the upcoming election. 

Speaking several months before the first 

presidential nominating caucus (in January 

2004), Mann concentrates on what to watch for 

as the upcoming election unfolds. John H. Aldrich 

reminds us that more than a presidential election 

occurs in 2004. All 435 seats in the House of 

Representatives and one-third of the 100 Senate 

seats will be in play as well. Governors, mayors, 

and state legislatures will be elected across 

America. Adding interest to the election is the fact 

that in the American system it is possible for one 

party to win the White House while another gains 

control of one or both houses of Congress. Unlike 

in parliamentary systems, the executive 

and legislature are selected 

independently of each other 

in the United States.

Finally, we consider 

two aspects of the 

process that have 

become crucial in modern 

elections: public-opinion 

polling and campaign-finance 

laws. Pollster John Zogby makes the 

case that opinion polls can be useful to candidates 

in defining issues that are important to voters, 

but they can be misused or misinterpreted when 

attempting to predict outcomes. Joseph E. Cantor 

then provides a concise explanation of the complex 

laws regulating contributions and expenditures in 

U.S. elections – $607 million was spent on the 

presidential election alone in 2000. Regulation of 

political campaigns involves a perceived conflict 

between two core values for Americans: freedom 

of speech, as guaranteed in the First Amendment 

of the U.S. Constitution, and ensuring a fair and 

open playing field for all candidates. 

As several of our authors suggest, the hallmark 

of the American election system over several 

centuries has been its fundamental stability, 

a stability that also responds to the need for 

modernization and change. We hope that as the 

events of the 2004 elections play out in coming 

months, readers worldwide will find this booklet 

useful as a guide to both the historical context and 

the unique features of the current campaign.

United States
2 v 

 hen the Founders of the

 American Republic wrote

 the U.S. Constitution in 

 1787, they did not envision a

 role for political parties in 

the governmental order. Indeed, they 

sought through various constitutional 

arrangements – such as separation 

of powers, checks and balances, federalism, and indirect election of the 

president by an electoral college – to 

insulate the new republic from political parties and factions. 

In spite of the Founders’ intentions, 

the United States in 1800 became 

the first nation to develop parties 

organized on a national basis and to 

transfer executive power from one 

faction to another via an election.

The development of political parties 

was closely linked to the extension of 

the suffrage as qualifications requiring 

property ownership were lifted during 

the early 1800s. With a vastly expanded 

electorate, a means was required to 

mobilize masses of voters. Political 

parties became institutionalized to 

accomplish this essential task. Thus, 

parties in America emerged as a part of 

this democratic expansion, and, by the 

1830s, they were a firmly established 

part of the political firmament.

Today, the Republican and 

Democratic parties pervade the 

political process. Approximately 

60 percent of Americans consider 

themselves either Republicans or 

Democrats, and even those who say 

that they are independents normally 

have partisan leanings and exhibit 

high levels of party loyalty. For 

example, in the five presidential 

elections between 1980 and 1996, 

75 percent of independents who 

“leaned” toward the Republicans or 

Democrats voted for their preferred 

party’s presidential candidate. And 

in 2000, 79 percent of Republican 

“leaners” voted for Republican 

George W. Bush, while 72 percent of 

Democratic “leaners” cast ballots for 

the Democratic candidate, Al Gore.

The pervasiveness of partisan 

influences also extends to the party 

in government. The two major 

parties now dominate the presidency, 

Congress, the governorships, and the 

state legislatures. Every president 

since 1852 has been either a 

Republican or a Democrat, and in the 

post-World War II era, the two major 

parties’ share of the popular vote for 

president has averaged 94.8 percent.

After the 2002 congressional and 

local elections, there was one lone 

independent senator among the 100 

members of the U.S. Senate, and 

just two of the 435 representatives in 

the U.S. House of Representatives 

were independents. At the state 

level, all 50 governors were either 

Republicans or Democrats, and only 

21 (.003 percent) of more than 7,300 

state legislators were elected as other 

than Republicans or Democrats. It is 

the two major parties that organize 

and dominate government at both the 

national and state levels. 

Although American parties tend 

to be less ideologically cohesive and 

programmatic than parties in many 

democracies, they do play a major 

and often decisive role in shaping 

public policy. Indeed, since the 1994 

elections, congressional Republicans 

and Democrats have demonstrated 

sharp policy differences and an 

unusually high level of intra-party 

unity compared to historic norms. 

The policy disagreements between 

the two parties exist within a context 

of congressional and senatorial 

elections every two years that have 

real potential to result in a change 

in partisan control of the House of 

Representatives and the Senate. The 

combination of policy divisiveness 

and intense competition for chamber 

control has created in recent years a 

super-heated atmosphere of partisan 

conflict in both the Senate and the 

House. And in the run-up to the 2004 

elections, the congressional leaders of 

both parties and the candidates for the 

Democratic presidential nomination, 

as well as the Bush administration, 

have engaged in a continuing series of 

maneuvers designed to gain electoral 

advantage. 

Two-party competition stands out as 

one of the American political system’s 

most salient and enduring features. 

Since the 1860s, the Republicans and 

Democrats have dominated electoral 

politics. This unrivaled record of 

the same two parties continuously 

monopolizing a nation’s electoral 

politics reflects structural aspects of 

the political system as well as special 

features of American political parties.

The standard arrangement for 

electing national and state legislators 

W 

Political 

Parties in 

the United 

States

BY JOHN F. BIBBY

George Washington, 

Federalist 

(President, 1789-1797)

Below: Grand National 

Republican banner, 1880, 

with portraits of (successful) 

presidential candidate 

General James A. Garfield 

and proposed vice-president, 

Chester A. Arthur.
V 3

in the United States is the “singlemember” district system. What this 

means is that whoever receives a 

plurality of the vote (that is, the 

greatest number of votes in any given 

voting district) is elected. Unlike 

proportional systems, the singlemember district arrangement permits 

only one party to win in any given 

district. The single-member system 

thus creates incentives to form two 

broadly based parties with sufficient 

popular appeal to win legislative 

district pluralities, while condemning 

minor and third parties to almost 

perpetual defeat – not a prescription 

for longevity unless they can combine 

forces with a major party. Combining 

forces with a major party, however, is 

not an option for most minor parties 

because all but a handful of states 

ban so-called fusion tickets in which a 

candidate runs as the nominee of more 

than one party.

A further institutional nudge 

toward two-partyism is provided 

by the electoral college system for 

choosing presidents. Under the 

electoral college system, Americans 

technically do not vote directly for 

a presidential slate of candidates. 

Instead, they vote within each state 

for a slate of “electors” who are 

pledged to one or another presidential 

candidate. Election as president 

requires an absolute majority of the 

50 states’ 538 electoral votes. This 

requirement makes it extremely 

difficult for a third party to achieve 

the presidency because the individual 

states’ electoral votes are allocated 

under a winner-take-all arrangement. 

That is, whichever candidate receives 

a plurality of the popular vote in 

a state – even if it is just a narrow 

plurality – wins all of that state’s 

electoral votes. Like the singlemember district system, the electoral 

college works to the disadvantage of 

third parties, which have little chance 

of winning any state’s electoral votes, 

let alone carrying enough states to 

elect a president.

With the Democrats and 

Republicans in control of the 

governmental machinery, it is not 

surprising that they have created 

other electoral rules that work to 

the advantage of the major parties. 

Just getting a new party’s name on 

the ballot within the states can be an 

arduous and expensive undertaking. 

For example, the state of North 

Carolina requires a petition containing 

58,842 voters’ signatures in order for 

a new party to place its presidential 

candidate on the state’s ballot for 

the 2004 election. In addition, the 

Federal Election Campaign Act 

bestows special benefits on major 

parties, including public funding 

of presidential campaigns at a 

substantially higher level than is 

available to minor parties – even those 

that reached the qualifying threshold 

of 5 percent of the popular vote in the 

last election.

America’s distinctive nominating 

process is an additional structural 

barrier to third parties. Among the 

world’s democracies, the United 

States is unique in its reliance on 

primary elections to nominate partisan 

candidates for congressional and 

state offices and its use of state-level 

presidential primaries in the selection 

of presidential nominees. Under this 

type of nominating system, rankand-file voters in a primary election 

select their party’s nominee for the 

general election. In most nations, 

partisan nominations are controlled 

by the party organizations and their 

leaders. But in the United States, it 

is the voters who make the ultimate 

determination of who the Republican 

and Democratic nominees will be.

Although this system helps create 

weaker internal party organizations 

than is the case in most democracies, 

this participatory nominating 

process has also contributed to the 

Republican-Democratic domination 

of electoral politics for almost 150 

years. By winning party nominations 

through primary elections, insurgents 

can gain access to the general election 

ballot and thereby enhance their 

chances of general election victories 

without having to organize third 

parties. Thus, the primary nomination 

process tends to channel dissent into 

the two major parties and makes it 

generally unnecessary for dissidents 

to engage in the difficult business 

of forming a third party. Of course, 

the system of primary elections to 

nominate candidates also makes the 

two major parties highly permeable 

and occasionally penetrated by 

various “fringe” social movements 

and “outsider” candidates.

American parties are multi-class and 

broad based in their electoral support. 

With the exception of AfricanAmerican voters – 90 percent of whom 

voted for the Democratic presidential 

candidate in 2000 – both the 

Republican and Democratic parties 

draw significant levels of support 

from virtually every major socioeconomic group in society. Although 

members of labor union households, 

for example, are commonly thought 

to be Democrats, the Republicans 

can expect in most elections to receive 

at least one-third of the labor union 

Below: Grand National 

Democratic banner, 

1880, with portraits 

of the party’s presidential 

candidates.

John Adams, 

Federalist 

(1797-1801)

Thomas Jefferson, 

Democratic-Republican 

(1801-1809)
4 v 

vote, and in 1984, the party received 

46 percent of the union vote. In 2000, 

union households voted 37 percent 

Republican. Similarly, while support 

for Democrats normally declines as 

income levels go up, Democratic 

presidential candidates can usually 

expect substantial support from 

upper-middle-class voters. In 2000, 

for example, Democratic candidate 

Al Gore received 43 percent of the 

vote among persons whose annual 

family income was more than 

$100,000.

Political parties in the 

United States also exhibit 

relatively low internal unity 

and lack strict adherence to 

an ideology or set of policy 

goals. Rather, they have 

traditionally been 

concerned first 

and foremost with 

winning elections 

and controlling the 

personnel of government. Given their 

broad socioeconomic 

bases of electoral support 

and the need to operate 

within a society that 

is largely middle-ofthe-road ideologically, 

American parties have 

adopted essentially 

centrist policy positions. They have also 

demonstrated a high level of policy 

flexibility. This non-doctrinaire 

approach enables the Republicans 

and the Democrats to tolerate great 

diversity within their ranks, and it has 

contributed to their ability to absorb 

third parties and protest movements 

when they have occurred.

It is hard to overstate the extent 

to which American parties are 

characterized by decentralized power 

structures. Historically speaking, 

within the party-in-the-government, 

presidents cannot assume that their 

party’s members in Congress will 

be loyal supporters of presidential 

programs, nor can party leaders in 

Congress expect straight party-line 

voting from members of their party. 

Within the party organization, 

the Republican and Democratic 

congressional and senatorial 

campaign committees (composed 

of incumbent legislators) operate 

autonomously from the presidentially 

oriented national party committees 

– the Republican and the Democratic 

National Committees. In addition, 

except for asserting authority over 

procedures for selecting delegates 

to national nominating conventions, 

national party organizations rarely 

meddle in state party affairs.

This level of organizational 

fragmentation reflects, in part, the 

consequences of the constitutional 

separation-of-powers system – the 

division of powers among the 

legislative, executive, and judicial 

branches of government, with 

each branch selected by different 

procedures, having different terms of 

office, and independent of one another. 

This system of divided governmental 

powers creates only limited incentives 

for party unity between legislators and 

their party’s chief executive. This is 

broadly true whether we are talking 

about members of Congress vis-à-vis 

a president of their own party, or a 

similar relationship between state 

legislators and a governor. 

The constitutional principle of 

federalism, which has created a 

layered system of federal, state, and 

local governments in the United 

States, further decentralizes the 

parties by creating thousands of 

constituencies – also at the federal, 

state, and local levels – each with 

its own officeholders. As previously 

noted, the use of primary elections to 

nominate candidates also weakens the 

party organizations by denying them 

the ability to control the selection 

of party nominees. Individual 

candidates, therefore, are encouraged 

to build their own personal campaign 

organizations and electoral followings, 

first to win the primaries and then the 

general elections. Even campaign 

fund-raising is largely the personal 

responsibility of the individual 

candidates, since party organizations 

normally have limited financial 

resources and are often severely 

restricted by law in terms of how much 

money they contribute, especially to 

federal election campaigns.

In spite of the long and impressive 

evidence of partisanship within 

the American political system, an 

ingrained component of the American 

civic culture is a distrust of political 

parties. The adoption of the primary 

system for nominating congressional 

and state candidates early in the 

20th century, and the more recent 

proliferation of presidential primaries, 

which have become the determining 

factor in presidential nominations, 

are testimony to anti-party sentiment 

within the public. Americans are 

uncomfortable with the leaders of 

their party organizations exercising 

great power over their government. 

From top to bottom: Banner 

supporting candidacy of Republican 

John Fremont and his running mate 

William Drayton in 1856. Cover 

of sheet music to the Republican 

Two-Step, composed in honor of 

presidential candidate William 

McKinley. Republican Party 

campaign poster featuring Ulysses 

S. Grant and his running mate, 

Schuyler Colfax, in the election 

of 1868. Republican poster for 

election of 1860 featuring Abraham 

Lincoln and his running mate, 

Hannibal Hamlin.

James Madison, 

Democratic-Republican 

(1809-1817)
V 5

Public opinion polls consistently 

reveal that large proportions of the 

electorate believe that parties do more 

to confuse the issues than clarify them 

– and that it would be better if there 

were no party labels on the ballot.

Not only do American parties 

operate in a generally inhospitable 

cultural climate, but they are 

also faced with the problem of a 

substantial number of voters attaching 

diminished importance to their 

party identification. One indicator 

of this weakened sense of partisan 

attachment on the part of voters 

is the incidence of ticket-splitting 

– voting for candidates of different 

parties in the same election. Thus, in 

2000, 20 percent of voters split their 

ballots by voting for candidates from 

different parties for president and for 

the U.S. House of Representatives. 

As a consequence, 40 of the House 

of Representatives’ districts carried 

by George W. Bush in the presidential 

election were at the same time won by 

Democratic House candidates.

As a result of many Americans 

having relatively weak partisan 

commitments, the existence of a 

sizeable segment of the voters who 

consider themselves independents, 

and the tendency of a significant 

percentage of citizens who engage in 

split-ticket voting, American politics 

is candidate centered rather than party 

centered. This has meant that divided 

party control of the executive and 

legislative branches of government 

has become a commonplace feature of 

both the national government and the 

50 states. Thus, in all but four years 

since 1980, the presidency and at least 

one chamber of the Congress have 

been controlled by different parties. 

Twenty-nine states (58 percent) had 

divided party control after the 2002 

elections.

As the accompanying table [following 

page] indicates, third parties and 

independent candidates, despite the 

obstacles discussed previously, have 

been a periodic feature of American 

politics. Often they have brought 

societal problems that the major 

parties were failing to confront to the 

forefront of public discourse – and 

onto the governmental agenda. But 

most third parties have tended to 

flourish for a single election and then 

die, fade, or be absorbed into one of 

the major parties. Since the 1850s, 

only one new party, the Republican 

Party, has emerged to achieve major 

party status. In that instance, there 

was a compelling moral issue – slavery 

– dividing the nation that provided 

the basis for candidate recruitment 

and voter mobilization.

Although the table does not 

provide much support for the longterm viability of third parties, there 

is evidence that these parties can have 

a major impact on election outcomes. 

For example, Theodore Roosevelt’s 

third-party candidacy in 1912 split the 

normal Republican vote and enabled 

Democrat Woodrow Wilson to be 

elected with less than a majority of 

the popular vote.

In 1992, H. Ross Perot’s 

independent candidacy attracted 

voters who, in the main, had been 

voting Republican in the 1980s, 

and thereby contributed to the 

defeat of the incumbent Republican 

president, George H.W. Bush. In the 

extremely close 2000 contest between 

Republican George W. Bush and 

Democrat Al Gore, it is possible that 

had Green Party candidate Ralph 

Nader not been on the ballot in 

Florida, Gore might have won that 

state’s electoral votes and thereby 

gained the majority of the electoral 

votes needed to be 

elected president.

Public opinion surveys 

since the 1990s have 

consistently shown a high 

level of popular support for 

the concept of a third party. 

In the run-up to the 2000 

election, a Gallup Poll found 

that 67 percent of Americans 

favored a strong third 

party that would run candidates for 

president, Congress, and state offices 

against Republican and Democratic 

nominees. It is just such sentiments, 

plus lavish campaign spending, 

that enabled Texas billionaire 

Perot to gain 19 percent of the 

popular vote for president in 

1992, the highest percentage for 

a non-major-party candidate since 

Theodore Roosevelt (Progressive 

Party) won 27 percent in 1912. 

In spite of demonstrations of 

potential support for a third party, 

imposing barriers exist to a third 

party’s winning the presidency and 

even electing a substantial number 

of senators or representatives. In 

addition to those noted previously, 

From top to bottom: 1868 

banner supporting Democratic 

candidates for president and 

vice-president, Horatio Seymour 

and Frank Blair. An election 

poster for Democratic candidates, 

General George McClellan and 

his running mate 

George Pendleton, 

circa 1864. 

Poster supporting 

Democratic 

candidates for 

president and 

vice-president, 

Samuel Tilden 

and Thomas 

Hendricks, 

1876.

James Monroe, 

Democratic-Republican 

(1817-1825)
6 v 

the most significant is the fear among 

voters that if they vote for a third 

party candidate, they will, in effect, 

be “wasting” their votes. Voters have 

been shown to engage in strategic 

voting by casting ballots for their 

second choice when they sense that 

a third-party candidate has no chance 

of winning. Thus in the 2000 election, 

15 percent of voters in a pre-election 

survey rated Ralph Nader more highly 

than either George W. Bush or Al 

Gore, but Nader received only 2.7 

percent of the popular vote. Similarly 

in 1992, among voters ranking Ross 

Perot highest, 21 percent defected to 

other candidates when they actually 

cast their ballots.

There is also the phenomenon 

of “protest” voting for third-party 

candidates. For example, Gallup 

Polls in 1992 revealed that 5 percent 

of Perot’s voters said that they would 

not have voted for him if they thought 

he could win.

Third – party and independent 

candidates would also face a 

potentially daunting post-election 

problem if they won the presidency. 

This, of course, is the problem of 

governing – staffing an administration 

and then working with a Congress 

dominated by Republicans and 

Democrats who would have only 

limited incentives to cooperate with 

a non-major-party president. 

John F. Bibby is a professor emeritus 

of political science at the University 

of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, and is 

the former chairman of the American 

Political Science Association’s political 

parties subfield. An authority on 

U.S. politics and government, Bibby 

has authored Politics, Parties, and 

Elections in America.

When American voters go to the 

polls to vote for president, many 

believe that they are participating 

in a direct election of the president. 

Technically, this is not the case, 

due to the existence of the electoral 

college, a constitutional relic of the 

18th century.

The electoral college is the name 

given a group of “electors” who are 

nominated by political activists and 

party members within the states. On 

election day, these electors, pledged 

to one or another candidate, are 

popularly elected. In December 

following the presidential vote, the 

electors meet in their respective 

state capitals and cast ballots for 

president and vice president. To be 

elected, a president requires 270 

electoral votes.

It is possible that in a close race 

or a multiparty race the electoral 

college might not cast 270 votes in 

favor of any candidate -- in that event, 

the House of Representatives would 

choose the next president.

The electoral college system was 

established in Article II, Section I, of 

the U.S. Constitution. While it has 

been the subject of mild controversy 

in recent years, it is also seen as 

a stabilizing force in the electoral 

system.

 Registered voters in the 50 

states and the District of Columbia 

cast ballots for president and vice 

president on the first Tuesday 

following the first Monday in 

November in a presidential election 

year.

 The candidates who win the 

popular vote within the state usually 

receive all the state’s electoral votes. 

(Technically, all the electors pledged 

to those candidates are elected.)

 A state’s number of electors 

equals the number of senators and 

representatives from that state. The 

District of Columbia, which has no 

voting representation in Congress, 

has three electoral votes.

 The electors meet and officially 

vote for president and vice president 

on the first Monday following the 

second Wednesday in December 

in a presidential election year. A 

majority of the vote is required for a 

candidate to be elected. Since there 

are 538 electors, a minimum of 270 

is necessary to win the electoral 

college.

 If no candidate for president 

receives a majority of the electoral 

votes, the House of Representatives 

must determine the winner from 

among the top three vote-getters in 

the electoral college. In doing so, 

members of the House vote by states, 

with each state delegation casting 

one vote.

 If no candidate for vice president 

receives a majority of the electoral 

vote, the Senate must determine the 

winner from among the top two votegetters in the electoral college.

The president and vice president 

take their oath and assume office on 

the next January 20, following the 

election.

Alabama -- 9

Alaska -- 3

Arizona -- 10

Arkansas -- 6

California -- 55

Colorado -- 9

Connecticut -- 7

Delaware -- 3

District of Columbia -- 3

Florida -- 27

Georgia -- 15

Hawaii -- 4

Idaho -- 4

Illinois -- 21

Indiana -- 11

Iowa -- 7

Kansas -- 6

Kentucky -- 8

Louisiana -- 9

Maine -- 4

Maryland -- 10

Massachusetts -- 12

Michigan -- 17

Minnesota -- 10

Mississippi -- 6

Missouri -- 11

Montana -- 3

Nebraska -- 5

Nevada -- 5

New Hampshire -- 4

New Jersey -- 15

New Mexico -- 5

New York -- 31

North Carolina -- 15

North Dakota -- 3

Ohio -- 20

Oklahoma -- 7

Oregon -- 7

Pennsylvania -- 21

Rhode Island -- 4

South Carolina -- 8

South Dakota -- 3

Tennessee -- 11

Texas -- 34

Utah -- 5

Vermont -- 3

Virginia -- 13

Washington -- 11

West Virginia -- 5

Wisconsin -- 10

Wyoming -- 3

Total -- 538

Electoral College Voting Strength by State
V 7

 he system for nominating 

candidates for the U.S. 

presidency looks complex, 

even chaotic, and it is. Ever 

since the 1970s when the

Democratic and Republican parties 

began to reform the rules for 

selecting their presidential and vice 

presidential nominees, the system has 

been in a state of flux, with the most 

successful candidates being those 

who understand the complexities and 

can maneuver in and around them. 

But after all, that is what creative 

politicians do – learn the game of 

politics and play it hard and skillfully.

 

Unlike the electoral college system for 

electing the president, the procedures 

for nominating presidential candidates 

are not spelled out in the U.S. 

Constitution. There were no political 

parties in existence at the time that 

the Constitution was drafted and 

ratified in the late 1700s. Parties 

developed after the government began 

to function, and as a consequence of 

the policies pursued by America’s first 

president, George Washington. 

Beginning in 1796, members of the 

U.S. Congress who identified with one 

of the political parties of the time met 

informally to agree on their party’s 

presidential and vice presidential 

nominees. Known as “King Caucus,” 

this system for selecting party 

candidates continued for almost 30 

years. It broke down in 1824, a victim 

of the decentralization of power within 

the political parties that accompanied 

the westward expansion of the United 

States.

National nominating conventions 

replaced King Caucus. In 1831, a small 

and minor party, the Anti-Masons, met 

in a saloon in the city of Baltimore, 

Maryland, to choose candidates 

and a platform (a declaration of the 

principles and policies adopted by a 

political party or candidate) on which 

they would run. The next year, the 

Democrats met in the same saloon 

to select their nominees. Since then, 

the major parties and most minor 

parties have held national nominating 

conventions, attended by state 

delegates, to choose their presidential 

and vice presidential candidates and 

to agree on their policy positions.

Throughout the 19th and into 

the 20th century, the nominating 

conventions were controlled by 

state party leaders who used their 

influence to handpick their state’s 

delegates and make sure that they 

voted “correctly” at the convention. 

The dominance of these party leaders 

ultimately became an issue within 

the parties. Those who did not like 

having entrenched “bosses” dictating 

the nominees supported reforms that 

permitted partisans within the states 

to select convention delegates in 

“primary” elections – elections that 

were scheduled before the general 

election. By 1916, more than half the 

states held presidential primaries.

The movement to encourage more 

people who considered themselves 

partisans to participate in their party’s 

presidential selection process was 

short-lived, however. Following the 

end of World War I, party leaders, who 

saw the primaries as a threat to their 

power, persuaded state legislatures to 

abolish them on the grounds that they 

were expensive and that relatively 

few people participated in them. 

Some potential candidates had also 

refused to enter the primaries because 

they already had the support of state 

party leaders and did not want to 

risk losing that support in a popular 

vote. Besides, in some states the 

presidential preference vote was only 

advisory; convention delegates were 

selected in another manner. By 1936, 

only a dozen states continued to hold 

presidential primaries.

But democratizing pressures 

reemerged after World War II, aided 

by developments in communications 

technology. The advent of television 

provided a medium through which 

people could now see and hear the 

political campaigns in their own living 

rooms. Candidates could use television 

exposure to demonstrate their 

charismatic popularity and potential 

PRESIDENTIAL

NOMINATIONS 

AND

AMERICAN

DEMOCRACY

BY STEPHEN J. WAYNE

T John Quincy Adams, 

Democratic-Republican 

(1825-1829)

Andrew Jackson, 

Democrat 

(1829-1837)

Left: Democrats 

wave flags at 

the 2000 Democratic 

National Convention 

in Los Angeles, California.
8 v 

electability. As candidates, Dwight 

Eisenhower, John Kennedy, and 

Richard Nixon all entered multiple 

state primaries, at considerable cost 

and effort, to prove to their party 

that a general, a Catholic, and a oncedefeated presidential candidate could 

win a general election. And they were 

successful. Each of them subsequently 

received his party’s nomination and 

was elected president.

In addition, the Vietnam 

War, which began in the 

mid-1960s and continued into 

the 1970s, engendered internal 

divisions within the Democratic 

Party, which, in turn, created 

pressures for further reform. The 

catalyst was the 1968 Democratic 

nominating process. An anti-war 

movement split the Democratic Party 

and produced violent demonstrations 

in the streets of Chicago, the city 

that hosted the party’s convention 

that year. Despite the agitation that 

accompanied its meeting, the party 

selected Vice President Hubert 

Humphrey, who had decided not to 

enter any Democratic primaries and 

thereby become a target of the antiwar protests.

In an attempt to unify a divided 

party, the Democratic convention, 

after it nominated Humphrey, 

agreed to appoint a committee to 

reexamine the party’s presidential 

nomination process, with the twin 

goals of encouraging greater party 

participation in the selection of 

a Democratic nominee and more 

equitable representation of the party 

at its nominating convention. The 

reforms adopted by the party began 

a process by which both major parties 

have democratized the way they select 

their nominees. 

 

The major reforms that the Democrats 

instituted have encouraged most of 

the states, which make the election 

laws for their residents, to hold 

primary elections. As currently 

constituted, a primary is an election 

among supporters of the same party 

to choose that party’s nominees to run 

in the general election. Depending 

on the laws of the state, voters may 

cast ballots for a party’s presidential 

candidates themselves, or indirectly 

for convention delegates who are 

“pledged” to those candidates.

The only other option that states 

may have under the current system 

is to hold a multistaged caucus/

convention process in which partisans 

who live within a relatively small 

geographic area – a local precinct 

– get together and vote for delegates 

who are pledged to support specific 

candidates. Those delegates, in turn, 

represent their precinct at a county 

convention, which chooses delegates 

to attend the state convention. And 

the delegates to the state convention 

select delegates to represent the 

state at the national convention. 

Although this system involves several 

months, the candidate preferences 

are essentially determined in the first 

round of voting. 

The actual size of any state’s 

delegation to the national nominating 

convention is calculated on the basis 

of a formula established by each party 

that includes such considerations as 

the state’s population, its past support 

for the party’s national candidates, 

and the number of elected officials 

and party leaders currently serving in 

public office. The allocation formula 

that the Democrats use results in 

national conventions that have about 

twice as many delegates as those of 

the Republicans.

The U.S. Constitution gives the 

states the authority to make their 

own election laws subject to the rules 

and qualifications that Congress may 

establish. Although states are free to 

determine the dates on which their 

primary and caucus elections may be 

held, they also have an incentive to 

conduct their nomination contests in 

accordance with party rules, since the 

U.S. Supreme Court has determined 

that the parties have a right to 

describe and enforce their own rules 

for those attending the national 

conventions. Thus, states that 

permit selection of party convention 

delegates in a manner that does not 

conform to party rules may find their 

delegates challenged when they get to 

the national party conventions, or they 

may find the size of the delegation 

reduced by the party for violating its 

rules.

Today, more than 80 percent of 

the delegates who attend their party’s 

national convention are chosen in 

1. Caucuses are held in more 

than 2000 precincts across the 

state of Iowa to choose more 

than 1,500 delegates to 99 

county conventions.

2. Conventions are held in 

counties to choose 3,000 

delegates to five congressional 

district conventions.

3. Conventions are held in 

congressional districts to elect 

district-level delegates to 

national party conventions. The 

same delegates also attend the 

state convention.

4. State conventions elect atlarge delegates to the national 

party convention. Democrats 

also select their state party and 

elected official delegates.

Above:

Delegate’s badge, national 

Democratic convention, 

1908. Below: Ribbon for 

election of 1876 featuring 

portrait of (losing) presidential 

candidate Samuel Tilden and 

his running mate. Center of 

page: engraving of Republican 

convention, 1880.
V 9

primary elections that are open 

to all registered or self-identified 

Democrats or Republicans. 

The Democratic Party has imposed 

a set of national rules on all its state 

affiliates; the Republican Party 

has not. The Democratic rules, in 

effect, require states to hold their 

presidential nomination contests 

between the first Tuesday of February 

and the second Tuesday in June in a 

presidential election year. The smaller 

states of Iowa and New Hampshire 

are given official exemptions to vote 

earlier because of their tradition of 

holding the first caucus and primary, 

respectively. The Democrats – in 

order to enhance the representation of 

minorities that may be concentrated 

in communities within the state – also 

require that 75 percent of a state’s 

delegation be elected in districts that 

are no larger than a congressional 

district. Moreover, the number of 

delegates who are pledged to support 

specific candidates is determined in 

proportion to the vote they or their 

candidates receive. The Democrats 

also have other delegates – party 

leaders and elected officials – who 

are not under obligation to support 

particular candidates even though 

those candidates may have won 

primaries in their states. Finally, 

the Democrats require that state 

delegations be equally divided 

between men and women.

Despite the differences in party 

rules – the Republican defer to their 

state affiliates and the Democrats do 

not – two important trends standout:

 More and more states have 

moved their primaries and 

caucuses toward the beginning 

of the electoral process in order 

to exercise more influence over 

the selection of the nominees, 

encourage the candidates to 

address the needs and interests 

of the state, and get their 

campaigns to spend money in 

them. This is known as “frontloading.” 

 In a practice known as 

“regionalization,” states have 

cooperated with one another 

to hold their primaries and 

caucuses on the same date to 

maximize the influence of a 

region. 

Both of these trends have forced 

candidates to begin their campaigns 

earlier to gain a foothold in the 

states that hold the initial contests. 

Candidates also have had to depend 

increasingly on the mass media, 

particularly radio and television, and 

on the endorsements of state party 

leaders to help them reach voters 

in the multiple states that may be 

conducting their primaries on the 

same day.

The front-loading and the 

regionalization of the presidential 

primary nomination process has 

benefited nationally recognized 

candidates, such as incumbent 

presidents, the governors of major 

states, and U.S. senators and 

representatives who have access to 

money, media, and organizational 

support.

Consider the preliminaries 

leading up to the 2004 Democratic 

presidential nomination, for example. 

Eight Democratic candidates had 

raised approximately $25 million and 

had spent $7 million by March 31, 

2003, more than 10 months before 

the first scheduled caucus or primary. 

Of these candidates, those who hold 

seats in the Congress raised the 

most, hired the best-known political 

consultants, and began to build the 

largest campaign organizations. The 

short time frame of the primary 

process works against those who 

need primaries and caucuses to be 

stepping-stones to the nomination, 

such as Jimmy Carter in 1976 and 

John McCain in 2000.

The continuing changes in 

the nomination process affect all 

the candidates. Even incumbent 

presidents cannot take their renomination for granted. In 1992, 

George H.W. Bush suffered some 

embarrassing defeats in the primaries 

at the hands of conservative talk show 

pundit and newspaper columnist Pat 

Buchanan. In contrast, Bill Clinton in 

1996 raised large sums of money early 

on to discourage a political opponent 

within his own party from challenging 

him. Clinton used this money to 

pursue a strategy of mounting a 

media-oriented, electoral campaign 

that extended from the beginning of 

the caucuses and primaries through 

the national election.

DEMOCRATS: Only registered 

Democrats who live in the precinct 

and are eligible to vote may 

participate. Attendees are asked 

to join preference groups for 

candidates. To be viable, a group 

must consist of at least 15 percent 

of those present. Nonviable 

groups are dissolved, and those 

who were members of them may 

join viable groups. Much lobbying 

occurs at this stage of the 

meeting. Delegates are allocated 

to candidates strictly on the basis 

of the group’s proportion to the 

caucus as a whole.

REPUBLICANS: Attendees, who 

must be eligible to vote 

but do not have to be registered 

as Republicans, cast a 

presidential preference vote 

by secret ballot. The 

votes are tabulated on a 

statewide basis. Delegates to the 

county convention are then 

selected by whatever method 

the caucus chooses, 

either by direct election 

(winner-take-all) or proportionally 

on the basis of a straw vote.

Center: Nine Democratic Party 

presidential hopefuls at their 

first debate, in South Carolina, 

May 3, 2003. From left to right: 

Congressman Dennis Kucinich, 

Congressman Richard Gephardt, 

Rev. Al Sharpton, Senator Joseph 

Lieberman, former Senator Carol 

Moseley Braun, former Governor 

Howard Dean, Senator John 

Edwards, Senator Bob Graham, 

and Senator John Kerry.

Martin Van Buren, 

Democrat 

(1837-1841)
10 v 

Reforms in the presidential nominating 

process have clearly enlarged the base 

of public participation. In 1968, before 

the recent changes in the process, 

only 12 million people voted in 

primaries, approximately 11 percent 

of the voting-age population. In 2000, 

approximately 35 million participated, 

about 15 percent of the electorate. In 

the run-up to the 2000 presidential 

election, more than 20 million voted in 

contests between George W. Bush and 

his Republican opponents, and about 

15 million voted in the Democratic 

contests between Vice President Al 

Gore and his principal opponent, 

former Senator Bill Bradley.

In addition to increasing 

public participation, the modern 

nominating process has expanded 

the representation of the groups 

comprising each party’s electoral 

coalition. Although demographic 

representation – in the sense of 

race and gender – has broadened 

among the parties’ delegates to the 

nominating conventions, ideological 

representation has not. The reason 

for this is that those who have higher 

participation rates in the nomination 

process tend to be party activists 

who are more ideological than the 

average rank-and-file party identifiers. 

Thus, the delegates at Republican 

conventions tend to be more 

conservative and the Democratic 

delegates more liberal than their 

respective electorates.

As noted, the reforms have also 

weakened the power of state party 

leaders and provided incentives for 

those seeking their party’s nomination 

to make board-based public appeals. 

These appeals have strengthened 

the tie between the candidates and 

their core base of supporters and have 

encouraged those who win office to 

redeem their campaign promises. 

George W. Bush, in his first year in 

office, directed his energies toward 

achieving his principal campaign policy 

goals of tax relief, educational reform, 

+ Includes party leaders and elected 

officials chosen from primary states.

* Does not include Vermont, which 

holds nonbinding presidential 

preference votes but chooses 

delegates in state caucuses and 

conventions.

Sources: For 1912-1964, F. 

Christopher Arterton, “Campaign 

Organizations Face the Mass Media 

in the 1976 Presidential Nomination 

Process” (paper delivered at the 

Annual Meeting of the American 

Political Science Association, 

Washington, D.C., September 

1-4, 1977); for 1968-1976, Austin 

Ranney, Participation in American 

Presidential Nominations, 1976 

(Washington, D.C.: American 

Enterprise Institute, 1977), table 

1, 6. The figures for 1980 were 

compiled by Austin Ranney 

from materials distributed by the 

Democratic National Committee and 

the Republican National Committee. 

The figures for elections since 1980 

were compiled by the author from 

data supplied by the Democratic 

and Republican National 

Committees and the Federal 

Election Commission.
V 11

and greater military preparedness, 

policy initiatives oriented toward his 

conservative political base.

Although many of the nomination 

reforms have contributed to a 

democratization of the nomination 

process, anomalies still exist. Those 

who participate in the primary 

elections tend to be better educated, 

to have higher incomes, and to be 

older than the average Republican and 

Democratic voter. In addition, 

as always, those who contribute 

money to the candidates or for their 

causes tend to be in the higher 

socioeconomic brackets. Inevitably, 

they gain a more powerful voice in the 

election outcome as a result.

Finally, the public and contentious 

nomination process produces 

factions within the parties. The 

more competitive the quest for the 

nomination, the more likely that 

these divisions will develop to the 

point where they must be overcome 

quickly if a party is to mount a 

successful presidential campaign for 

its nominee.

Another consequence of the changes 

in the presidential nomination process 

has been the decreasing importance 

of the party’s national nominating 

convention. Today, the presidential 

nominee is effectively determined 

by the voters relatively early in the 

nomination process. That nominee, 

in turn, usually indicates his choice for 

a vice presidential candidate before 

the convention meets. The winning 

candidate also controls the drafting 

of a party platform. Why, then, should 

the American people spend time in 

front of a television set watching the 

nominating conventions?

The fact of the matter is that many 

people do not do so. Convention 

viewership has declined in recent 

years, as have the number of hours 

that the major broadcast networks air 

the proceedings during prime viewing 

hours. Surveys conducted by research 

organizations during the summer of 

2000, when both parties held their 

nominating conventions, found that 

about half the television audience did 

not tune in to either of them.

Despite the decline in the 

viewing audience, the conventions 

still receive attention on news 

shows and in newspapers. The same 

surveys indicated that in 2000, public 

awareness increased during and after 

the conventions, as did knowledge 

of the candidates and their policies. 

Thus, the conventions did serve to 

inform the voters, shore up support 

and build enthusiasm among partisans 

for their party’s nominees, and focus 

the attention of the country on the 

forthcoming general election.

The presidential nominating 

process is not perfect, but in recent 

decades it has enhanced participation, 

improved demographic representation, 

and strengthened the tie between the 

average partisan and the candidates. 

As constituted, the process gives 

Center: An old engraving 

showing the National Democratic Convention 

in session in Baltimore. 

Right: 1940 presidential candidate 

Wendell Willkie pin. 

Lincoln/Hamlin ribbon describing 

Lincoln as “honest old Abe,” election 

of 1860.

advantage to candidates who are 

better known, can raise more money, 

have the most effective campaign 

organizations, and generate the most 

enthusiasm among the voters early in 

the presidential primary season. 

Stephen J. Wayne is a professor of 

government at Georgetown University in 

Washington, D.C., and the author 

of the book, The Road to The White 

House 2004 (Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004).

 

William Henry Harrison, 

Whig 

(1841)

John Tyler, 

Whig 

(1841-1845)
12 v 

n general, American voters have 

the opportunity to participate in 

more elections than the citizens 

of most other democracies. 

Some Americans may have five 

or six opportunities a year to vote, 

with each ballot filled with different 

choices for different offices at various 

levels of government. Because of its 

federal system, in which both the 

national government and the state 

governments have distinct powers, 

election day in the United States is 

actually the occasion for a series of 

simultaneous state and local elections, 

each held under separate administrative procedures.

 In the U.S. political system, many 

offices are elective, and beyond those, 

there are numerous decisions about 

financial support for education and 

for state and local services such as 

parks and highways that are made by 

the public at the polls. And more and 

more policy decisions are being made 

through these voter referenda and 

initiatives. Some political scientists 

have explained that the frequency of 

elections may help to explain declining voter turnout in the United States 

over the last 50 years. Americans also 

select most partisan candidates in 

primary elections, which are actually 

political party functions that are run 

by election administrators.

Because of the local nature of U.S. 

elections, then, there are thousands 

of election administrators responsible 

for organizing and conducting them, 

including tabulating and certifying the 

results. These officials have an important and complex set of tasks – setting 

the dates for elections, certifying the 

eligibility of candidates, registering eligible voters and preparing voter rolls, 

selecting voting devices, designing 

ballots, organizing a large temporary 

work force to administer the voting on 

election day, and then tabulating the 

votes and certifying the results.

Traditionally, American elections 

have not had particularly close outcomes. Most offices on a ballot are 

local, and election district boundaries 

frequently have been drawn by the 

party in power, based on historical voting patterns, in ways that make them 

safe for one political party or the other. 

However, there obvious and recent 

exceptions. The outcome of the 2000 

U.S. presidential election – the drawnout contest to determine a winner in 

the closest presidential election in 

American history – exposed Americans to many of these administrative 

issues for the first time.

Voting in the United States is a 

two-step process. There is no national 

list of eligible voters, so a citizen must 

first qualify by becoming registered. 

Citizens register to vote in conjunction with the place they live; if they 

move to a new location, they typically 

have to register again. Registration 

systems have been designed to eliminate fraud. But the procedures for registering voters vary from state to state. 

In times past registration procedures 

were sometimes used to discourage 

certain citizens from participating in 

elections. Recently, there has been a 

U.S.

election

procedures BY

MICHAEL W. TRAUGOTT

I

James K. Polk, 

Democrat 

(1845-1849)

Top: Voters cast ballots 

in a midterm election 

on Nov. 5, 2002, in Halifax, 

Massachusetts. Center: 

Voters prepare to cast votes using 

new electronic voting machines in 

Miami, Florida, 

November 4, 2002.
V 13

tendency to ease registration requirements, and the 1993 National Voter 

Registration Act (the “Motor Voter” 

law) makes it possible for people to 

register to vote at the time they renew 

their drivers’ licenses. 

One of the most important functions for election officials is ensuring 

that everyone who is eligible to vote is 

on the registration lists but that no one 

who is unqualified is included. Generally, local election officials err on the 

side of keeping people on the lists 

even if they have not voted recently, 

rather than eliminating potentially 

eligible voters. When people appear at 

the polls whose names are not on the 

lists, they are now given a provisional 

ballot to record their votes. Their 

eligibility is subsequently reviewed 

before their votes are recorded.

In the United States, an election is an 

administrative exercise – conducted 

locally on a fixed budget – whose 

purpose is to measure the preferences 

of eligible voters in an accurate and 

timely manner. This means that election administrators – typically a county 

or city clerk – have a daunting task. 

They are responsible for registering 

voters all year long and for determining who is eligible to vote in a particular election. They have to design 

the ballots for each election, making 

sure that all certified candidates are 

listed and all issues up for decision are 

correctly worded. An they must try to 

make the ballot as simple and as clear 

as possible.

Currently, there are no national 

standards for ballot forms or voting 

devices. Typically, election officials 

have to provide for ballots in multiple 

languages and sometimes even in different forms. In some jurisdictions, the 

order of the candidates and parties has 

to be randomly assigned. Ultimately, 

local election officials have to select 

the specific voting machines to use, 

and the ballots must match the devices. As a response to problems that 

arose in the state of Florida’s election 

for the presidency in 2000, Congress 

passed legislation providing financial 

assistance to states and counties to 

adopt the most modern and reliable 

voting procedures.

In between elections, these officials 

are responsible for the storage and 

maintenance of the voting devices, 

tasks that are usually performed by contractors rather 

than regular staff. And one of 

their most difficult tasks is to 

hire and train a large temporary staff for one long session 

of work (typically 10 to 15 

hours) on election day.

When voting equipment 

or ballot forms change between elections, this training process 

can be even more daunting. The 

logistics of moving machines and 

hiring and training staff is sometimes 

so consuming that the checking of 

voters’ eligibility is left to volunteers 

supplied by the major political parties. 

Since the volunteers are usually representatives of the political parties, 

there are occasional, if inevitable, 

disagreements about the conduct of 

some local elections.

The second step in the voting process 

is public access to a ballot. For most 

eligible voters, this has meant going to 

a polling place near their homes to cast 

a vote. Across the nation, there is wide 

variation both in terms of the size of 

precincts geographically and the number of persons eligible and registered 

to vote in each one.

Decisions about equipment and 

ballot forms are made at the local level 

because these systems are paid for locally. Thus, the way that people vote 

– the kinds of equipment they use and 

how well it is maintained – is related 

to the socioeconomic status and the 

tax base of their locale. Since local 

tax revenue also funds schools, police 

and fire services, and parks and recreation facilities, investments in voting 

technology often have been given low 

priority. 

A wide variety of voting devices 

are available in the United States, 

and the landscape of voting technologies is continuously changing. Today, 

there are very few places where 

regular voting takes place with paper 

ballots marked with an “X” next to 

a candidate’s name, as was done in 

the past, but many computerized 

systems still depend on paper ballots 

on which circles are filled in or lines 

are connected. These ballots are then 

scanned mechanically to have the 

votes recorded.

Many jurisdictions still use “lever” 

machines, on which voters turn a 

small lever next to the names of the 

candidates they prefer or the side of 

an issue they support. Their votes are 

recorded at the end of this process by 

pulling a large lever. These machines 

have not been manufactured in more 

than 30 years, so they are especially 

difficult and expensive to maintain. 

As a result, they are slowly being 

phased out.

Zachary Taylor, 

Whig 

(1849-1850)

Top left: A town official of 

Dixville Notch, New Hampshire, 

casts the symbolic first ballot of the 

2000 presidential election. 

Right margin, top to bottom: 

A woman on a bicycle 

hands her ballot in at an official 

drop site in Portland, Oregon in the 

2000 presidential election.

A woman in the Northeast holds 

her daughter while 

waiting to vote. Senior citizens 

vote in the 2000 

presidential election at a Florida 

retirement community.
14 v 

Another very common device is a 

“punch-card” machine. The ballot is 

either on a card where holes or punches are made next to a candidate’s 

name, or the card is inserted into a 

holder that lines up with a ballot image, and then the holes are punched. 

This is the form of ballot that caused 

controversy in counting votes for the 

2000 U.S. presidential election in 

Florida. As a result of that situation, 

punch-card devices are also being 

phased out.

The current trend is toward adoption of direct recording electronic 

(DRE) devices, which have computerized touch screens that resemble automated banking machines. Although 

there has been considerable discussion 

of voting by computer or the Internet 

to make the process easier – and one 

such system has been tried in an Arizona primary – security specialists are 

working to refine these systems, and 

they are not yet in widespread use.

A significant change in balloting in 

recent years has been adopting procedures that make ballots available to 

voters before election day. This trend 

started with provisions for absentee 

ballots, which are issued to voters who 

anticipate being away from their home 

(and their voting place) on election 

day. Some locales gradually liberalized 

this provision, allowing citizens to register as “permanent absentee voters” 

and routinely have a ballot mailed to 

their home.

Another new provision is “early 

voting,” for which voting machines 

are set up in shopping malls and other 

public places for up to three weeks 

before election day. Citizens may stop 

by at their convenience to cast their 

votes. And in some states, citizens are 

voting by mail. In Oregon, all citizens 

are mailed a ballot 20 days before election day, and they can return the ballot 

by mail or drop it off at designated locations in person. Other places – like 

Seattle and King County in the state 

of Washington – have adopted voting 

by mail, but surrounding locales still 

use DRE or punch-card devices. 

Across the United States as a whole, 

more than one-fifth of the electorate 

cast their ballots before what was 

formerly known as “election day.” 

As the proportion of citizens casting 

ballots before election day grows, 

it will become more appropriate to 

think of the first Tuesday after the first 

Monday in November – America’s 

traditional presidential election day 

– not as “election day” but as “counting day.” Even though early ballots 

are becoming more popular, they are 

not counted until late on election day, 

so that no information can be released 

before the polls close about which 

candidate is ahead or behind. This 

sort of advance information could affect campaign styles and effort, as well 

as voter turnout.

A number of vivid lessons about 

counting ballots came to light during 

the 2000 presidential election. The 

principal problem in Florida, as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court 

in ruling on the disputed election, 

was the issue of uniform standards 

in counting different types of ballots. 

In some jurisdictions, absentee ballots 

are different from those that appear in 

the voting device in the precincts. As 

a result, more than one set of tabulations might have to be made. And 

Franklin Pierce, 

Democrat 

(1853-1857)

Center: A county official 

in Georgia operates a new 

touch-screen voting 

machine in October, 2002. 

The system was being 

prepared for 

November elections.

Center Bottom: An election 

official checks voter 

registrations in Dearborn, 

Michigan, November 7, 

2000. 

Millard Fillmore, 

Whig 

(1850-1853)
V 15

absentee ballots are not counted at all 

in some jurisdictions if there are fewer 

absentee ballots than the difference 

in the vote between the two leading 

candidates.

The 2000 election also revealed 

that voting machines are like any 

other kind of electromechanical device: They have a tolerance for error 

built into them, but they require regular and periodic maintenance in order 

to function at their most accurate 

level. If an election is extremely close, 

the tabulating devices can produce 

slightly different totals when the votes 

are counted more than once.

When you have a national election 

decided by less than 0.5 percent in the 

popular vote, and the outcome in one 

state – in this case, Florida – is only 

202 votes difference out of the more 

than 5.8 million votes cast for George 

W. Bush and Al Gore, the tabulation procedures associated with the 

particular devices used may become 

controversial. A large proportion of 

the votes in Florida were cast with 

punch-card devices. Maintenance was 

one issue, and the ability of voters to 

punch clean holes in their ballots 

was another. In some locations, the 

design of the ballots confused voters, 

especially the elderly, and may have 

caused some voters to cast a ballot for 

a candidate other than the one they 

intended to vote for. 

The closeness of the election 

outcome in Florida – a nd the fact 

that it was the last state to be able 

to complete its vote count made it a 

special target of both the Bush and 

Gore forces in the weeks after election day. Because of the local nature of 

the American election system and the 

fact that the electoral college assigns 

its votes by state on a winner-take-all 

basis, both sides initiated legal actions 

in the state courts. Each team picked 

the locales in which they expected 

to be most successful in terms of the 

legal issues they raised, as well as in 

their ability to challenge particular 

kinds of votes. Neither candidate’s 

team asked for a recount of the entire 

state. Ultimately, their case headed to 

the U.S. Supreme Court for final adjudication, where it was decided that 

the recounting should be stopped and 

the Florida Secretary of State’s original certification of the result upheld. 

Thus Florida’s 25 electoral votes went 

to George W. Bush, giving him an 

electoral college majority and securing 

him the presidency.

One of the distinct lessons of the 

2000 election was that the election administration, balloting, and 

vote-counting issues encountered in 

Florida could have occurred to some 

degree in almost any jurisdiction in 

the United States. Even though they 

were unlikely to have the same consequence because election outcomes 

are very rarely as close as the 2000 

presidential election, a number of 

problems were highlighted. Several 

studies were commissioned, and a variety of panels heard expert witnesses 

and took testimony about the need 

for reform. While there were some 

partisan elements to both the review 

and the eventual reform proposals, the 

perceived need for action in advance 

of the 2004 election outweighed those 

factors.

In 2002, the 107th Congress passed 

the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), 

which includes several notable elements. First, the federal government 

offered payments to states and localities to replace outdated punch-card 

and lever voting machines. Second, 

it established an Election Assistance 

Commission to provide technical 

assistance to local election administration officials and establish standards 

James Buchanan, 

Democrat 

(1857-1861)

for voting devices. The Election Assistance Commission will propose voluntary guidelines for voting systems 

and for the testing and certification 

of voting system hardware and software. The commission’s portfolio also 

includes the establishment of research 

programs to study voting machine and 

ballot design, methods of registration, methods for provisional voting 

and for deterring fraud, procedures 

for recruiting and training poll workers, education programs for voters, 

procedures for determining whether 

there is a need for more consistency 

among state recount processes with 

regard to federal offices, and alternative methods of holding elections for 

federal offices.

The HAVA represents a significant 

departure from the past reluctance 

of the federal government to get 

involved in what has been seen as a 

local administrative issue. But in the 

aftermath of the 2000 election, especially the contest over Florida, this 

procedural reform effort has helped 

reconfirm the faith that Americans 

have in their electoral system. And 

the costs involved are small when 

one considers that elections are the 

legitimizing foundation of a functioning democracy. 

Michael W. Traugott is a professor of communication studies and political science at the University 

of Michigan. He is the co-author of The Voter’s 

Guide to Election Polls and Election Polls, 

the News Media and Democracy. His current 

research focuses on the effect of election administration reform.

left: American 

diplomats and 

their family 

members cast absentee 

ballots at the U.S. 

consulate in 

Bombay, India, 

17 October 2000. 
DATEs OF PRESIDENTIAL 

PRIMARY elections, caucuses, and 

nominating conventions

16 v 

In the United States party caucuses and primary elections are essential to choosing 

presidential candidates. This calendar lists currently scheduled presidential primaries and 

caucuses leading up to the national 2004 election. Caucuses are in italics.

In this context a “caucus” generally refers to a statewide gathering of each party’s local 

political activists during the presidential nomination process. The purpose of the caucus 

system is to indicate, through delegate choice, which presidential candidate is preferred 

by each state party’s members. Primaries serve a similar function, but they are direct 

electoral contests held to choose a political party’s candidate for a particular public office. 

Depending on state law, voters cast ballots for the presidential candidate they prefer or 

for delegates who are “pledged” to support that presidential candidate at the party’s 

convention.

16 v
January 19

Iowa 

January 27

New Hampshire

February 3

Arizona

Delaware

Missouri

Oklahoma

South Carolina (Democratic)

New Mexico (Democratic)

North Dakota

February. 7

Michigan (Democratic)

February 8

Maine (Democratic)

February 10

Tennessee 

Virginia

District of Columbia (Republican)

February 14

District of Columbia (Democratic)

Nevada (Democratic)

February 17

Wisconsin 

February 24

Utah (Democratic)

Hawaii 

Idaho 

March 2

California 

Connecticut

Georgia 

Maryland 

Massachusetts 

New York

Ohio

Rhode Island

Vermont

Washington

Minnesota 

March 9

Florida

Louisiana

Mississippi

Texas 

March 13

Kansas (Democratic)

March 16

Illinois 

March 20

Alaska (Democratic)

Wyoming (Democratic)

April 13

Colorado (Democratic)

April 27

Pennsylvania

May 4

Indiana

North Carolina

May 6-8

Wyoming (Republican)

May 11

Nebraska

West Virginia

May 15

Wyoming (Democratic)

May 18

Arkansas

Kentucky

Oregon

May 25

Idaho

June 1

Alabama

New Mexico

South Dakota 

June 8

Montana

New Jersey 

July 26-29

Democratic National 

Convention, Boston

August. 30-September 2

Republican National 

Convention, New York City

V 17
18 v 

Q: What are the major issues of 

Election 2004?

A: Every campaign over its 

course touches on a wide range 

of issues, but in the upcoming 

presidential election it seems very 

likely that there will be two key 

issues. One is the well-being of the 

economy – that means economic 

growth, jobs, the overall condition of 

U.S. fiscal policy.

The second issue is security, 

physical security. That means 

Americans’ sense of well-being visà-vis terrorism at home, and it means 

national security policy, particularly 

the aftermath of our military 

engagements in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Q: Do ordinary Americans care 

about foreign policy issues?

A: Public concerns about foreign 

policy wax and wane, depending on 

the international environment. More 

broadly, there were times during the 

Cold War when Americans cared 

very deeply about foreign policy; 

certainly the Vietnam War became an 

issue for Americans. The reason, I 

think, foreign policy will be important 

in the 2004 election is 9/11. The 

terrorist attack on the World Trade 

Center and the Pentagon made clear 

to Americans that we were not as 

secure as we thought, and the vast 

majority of our citizens responded 

very positively to President Bush’s 

argument that we have to carry the 

battle to the terrorists.

The events of September 11 mean 

that Americans now understand there 

is a clear link between security at 

home and our policies abroad, and 

certainly the president’s dramatic 

increase in popularity with the 

American public, the widespread 

feeling that he demonstrated decisive 

leadership, was based upon his 

foreign policy actions, not domestic 

initiatives of the administration.

After 9/11 the Republicans opened 

a huge advantage in opinion polls 

as the party the public trusts to deal 

with national security policy, and 

maintaining that advantage is one of 

the keys to the President’s reelection. 

Diminishing that advantage 

is certainly one of the goals of the 

Democrats in their effort to reclaim 

the White House.

The decisive military victories 

in Afghanistan and Iraq by U.S.-led 

coalitions have been followed by a 

much more complicated challenge 

of postwar reconstruction, providing 

opportunities for the administration’s 

critics to make this an issue in the 

campaign.

Q: The previous presidential 

election, in 2000, was close between 

Bush and Gore. How does the 

closeness of that vote influence 

tactics and strategy in the upcoming 

election 2004?

A: The 2000 presidential election 

was resolved with the 5-4 decision 

of the Supreme Court to terminate 

the recount in the state of Florida. 

What’s important here is that the 

outcome in 2000 reaffirmed the 

overriding reality that we are a 50-

50 nation, divided almost equally 

between Democrats and Republicans 

at every level of elected office, and at 

the level of individual voters.

As a consequence, I think both 

parties’ strategies anticipate a close 

election in 2004. Both parties realize 

how important it is to turn out their 

core supporters. So there will be a 

huge effort to mobilize individual 

voters. I think you’re going to see 

a fascinating shift in resources from 

television advertising, although there 

will still be plenty of that, to voteridentification and “get-out-the-vote” 

efforts.

Both parties and their allied 

interest groups will make enormous 

investments in getting their 

supporters to the polls. Democrats 

may use unhappiness among their 

core supporters over the Florida 

outcome in 2000 as a motivating force 

in getting their people to the polls.

It’s worth remembering, though, 

that in the 2002 

midterm elections for seats in 

Congress, the Republicans won 

the turnout battle. They were 

more successful in mobilizing their 

supporters, and that accounted in 

large part for their success in the 

midterm elections.

Q: How do the parties get the voters 

to turn out?

A: In other countries with either 

mandatory voting or very high voting 

participation, these considerations 

don’t arise in the same way. But in 

the United States, where a turnout 

of 50 percent of the age-eligible 

electorate is considered the norm 

in presidential elections, it matters 

a lot what is done to try to motivate 

citizens to turn up at the polls.

Now, if you ask what factors 

account for Americans voting or not 

voting, the predominant one tends to 

be information. Do potential voters 

actually know there’s an election? 

Do they know who the candidates 

are? Do they know what differences 

exist between the candidates and 

the parties? Secondly, do they have 

an attachment to one of the parties? 

Are they linked in some way to the 

contending forces in the elections?

Third, has anyone asked them 

to vote? Have they had personal 

contact with others who have 

informed them of where the polling 

places are and when they should turn 

up to vote and the like? It’s this last 

factor that is the focus of get-out-thevote efforts.

What these efforts require is 

building organization at the local 

level, using computerized files to 

identify likely supporters, making 

contact with them by telephone, 

by direct mail, and, best of all, by 

personal contact, preferably from a 

trusted source – someone they work 

with, someone in their community 

– and then on election day making 

follow-up calls to make sure they’ve 

gone to the polls, in some cases 

INTERVIEW

WITH

ThOMas 

MANN

 on 

campaign 

2004

BY

PAUL MALAMUD

Andrew Johnson, 

Union 

(1865-1869)

Abraham Lincoln, 

Republican 

(1861-1865)
V 19

offering to transport them 

to the polls. It’s really quite an 

extraordinary effort.

Q: Naturally, mobilization works best 

with core constituencies. What are 

the core constituencies of each party?

A: Demographic analysis by the 

Center for Political Studies at the 

University of Michigan [http://

www.umich.edu/~nes/nesguide/

nesguide.htm] suggests differences 

between the bases of each of the 

political parties. It turns out the 

strongest Democratic supporters 

are African-Americans. They vote 

typically nine-to-one Democratic. 

Hispanics also tend to support 

Democrats, though the margin is 

two-to-one or less. Union households 

vote disproportionately Democratic. 

Lower-income working-class people 

tend to vote more Democratic, 

although some of them tend to 

be social conservatives, and a 

substantial chunk of them are 

attracted occasionally to Republican 

candidates. Social and cultural 

concerns are largely responsible for 

working-class and middle-class white 

males supporting the Republican 

Party. 

Divorced people and families 

headed by a single parent tend to be 

more Democratic, while traditional 

married couples tend to be more 

Republican. Religious affiliation 

and religious practice and attendance 

are powerful predictors of who’s in 

the Republican base. The more 

frequently one attends religious 

services, the more likely one is to be a 

Republican, and to vote Republican. 

Secularists tend to be Democratic.

Higher-income people are 

Republican in their orientation. 

This is especially true of those in 

commerce: from small business 

entrepreneurs to corporate 

executives. And yet, newly minted 

professionals -- highly 

educated and with graduate degrees 

– increasingly vote Democratic. 

Finally, there’s a geographical 

difference to the base of each of 

the parties. We call it “red and 

blue states” – based on the way the 

country divided on a television map 

of the United States after the last 

presidential election. The blue states 

on the map voted Democrat; these 

cluster on the East and West coasts, 

and in the northern tier of states. The 

red, or Republican, states tend to be 

located in the South, in the rural farm 

and Rocky Mountain states, and in 

some of the Midwest states.

You can also look at party affiliation 

within the states. Democrats tend to 

have their bases within the cities and 

the inner suburbs. Republicans are 

stronger in the outer suburbs and in 

the rural areas.

Democrats increasingly are 

strong in the growth high-tech areas, 

Republicans stronger in some of the 

areas of the country that have actually 

lost population – some of the rural 

areas. Republicans have done very 

well in Southern suburbs of all kinds, 

including rapidly growing areas like 

the one around Atlanta (Georgia).

In sum, Republicans might be 

thought of as the party of religious 

and cultural conservatives; business 

men and women; the South, the 

mountain states, and the Midwest; 

and the outer suburbs and rural 

areas. Democratic supporters include 

minorities; secularists and social 

liberals; union households; big-city 

and low-income residents; and the 

East and West coasts. Of course, 

all these classifications are based 

on general tendencies. Among all 

demographic groups, there is diversity 

in political orientation.

Q. What advantages and 

disadvantages do incumbent 

presidents face in elections?

A: First of all, it’s an historical 

fact that most sitting 

presidents running 

for reelection have 

been successful. Not all 

of course – in fact, in recent history 

we’ve had several that have been 

unsuccessful. The first President 

Bush in 1992 and President Carter 

in 1980 both failed to win reelection. 

It’s also the case that Gerald Ford, 

who had moved up to the presidency 

without having been elected to it, also 

failed in his reelection effort in 1976.

But, in general, presidents tend 

to win a second term. That’s partly 

because they oftentimes avoid any 

primary challenge that would harm 

their candidacy by highlighting their 

vulnerabilities. However, the first 

President Bush, President Carter, 

and President Ford all faced primary 

campaign challenges. The fact that 

the current president, George W. 

Bush, is not facing any competition 

for the Republican nomination is a 

tremendous advantage to him. 

Secondly, sitting presidents are in a 

position to dominate what Theodore 

Roosevelt called “the bully pulpit” 

– that is, to set the agenda, and 

focus the attention of the public on 

matters that work to their advantage. 

Occasionally, by taking actions with 

respect to foreign policy and domestic 

economic policy, they are in a position 

to change the reality on the ground 

so it can work to their advantage in 

the election itself. They also have an 

easier time – as incumbents – raising 

money, garnering resources. They 

have benefits they can distribute 

to party activists that provide an 

advantage in the election itself.

Now the disadvantage for an 

incumbent is that presidents tend 

to be given credit for good things 

that happen during their term and 

blame for the bad things, whether 

they deserve the credit or blame. So, 

being in office during good times 

is a route to reelection. But being 

the incumbent president when the 

economy is sour, or when a foreign 

Ulysses S. Grant, 

Republican 

(1869-1877)

Rutherford B. Hayes, 

Republican 

(1877-1881)
policy has gone bad is a distinct 

disadvantage. Elections in many 

respects are referendums on the 

perceived performance of the sitting 

administration.

If times are good, it’s an advantage. 

If times are bad, it’s clearly a 

disadvantage.

Q: Mr. Bush’s political base as 

president is clear. On the other hand, 

most of the Democratic contenders 

have held a variety of offices 

– congressman, senator, governor of a 

state, general in the military. How do 

these positions affect their chances of 

becoming president?

A: It is said that most members of the 

U.S. Senate, upon awakening each 

morning and looking in the bathroom 

mirror, see a potential president. 

But, as we say, many senators are 

“called,” but few are actually chosen. 

The last person to win the presidency 

from the Senate was John Kennedy in 

1960. Since then, we’ve had several 

senators win the nomination but lose 

the election. That includes Bob Dole 

in 1996 and George McGovern in 

1972. It turns out that the Senate is 

not a particularly attractive launching 

point for a presidential election.

Most candidates who have won 

the presidency have come either 

from the vice presidency or from a 

governorship. The vice presidency 

is a natural base for running for 

president, although a sitting vice 

president is not always successful, 

as Al Gore learned in 2000. 

Governorships have proven to be 

particularly fertile ground for running 

for president – most recently, George 

W. Bush; before him, Bill Clinton, 

Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter. It’s 

really been quite an extraordinary 

record. A military career provided a 

fertile recruitment ground for 19th

century presidents, but in the modern 

era only Dwight Eisenhower has 

moved from military commander to 

commander-in-chief.

Q: How will campaign finance 

laws influence the outcome of this 

election?

A: George Bush was the first 

successful presidential candidate 

to decline matching public (U.S. 

government) funds in the nominating 

process in 2000. Therefore, by law, 

he was not subject to spending limits 

during that time. As a consequence, 

he raised in year 2000 over $100 

million and outspent his Democratic 

opponent. That would not have been 

permissible if he took public funds. 

In 2004 as the candidate contribution 

limits from individuals have doubled 

according to the law from $1,000 to 

$2,000, the Bush campaign will once 

again forgo the public matching funds 

and raise as much as $200 million 

during the nominating process. 

Without any challenger for the 

Republican nomination, President 

Bush’s campaign will be able to use 

that money to help define in their 

terms the Democratic nominee for 

president to the public, and to begin 

to build a get-out-the-vote local 

organizational effort that will help 

them in the general elections. That’s 

a tremendous advantage.

None of the Democratic 

candidates have demonstrated the 

same ability to raise that amount 

of money during the party primary 

season. If they accept the public 

matching funds, they will be held 

to spending closer to $50 million; 

most of that will be spent in the early 

primary campaign in 2003 and the 

early months in 2004 trying to win 

the nomination. Then, they will 

basically have little or no money left 

in the period after a nominee emerges 

and their party convention. Given 

this potential disparity, look for one 

or more of the Democratic candidates 

to decline matching public funds and 

raise and spend as much money as 

they can.

After the primary campaigns 

are over and the party nominating 

conventions take place, the 

candidates make another decision on 

whether to accept public funding for 

the general election. It’s expected 

that both President Bush and the 

Democratic nominee will accept the 

public matching funds. 

Q: Does money make all that big 

a difference in the outcome of 

presidential contests?

A: Money makes more of a 

difference in some races and 

under some circumstances than 

it does in others. It’s extremely 

important in House races, in races 

for the U.S. Senate, and in races 

for governorships, because a lot of 

money is required for challengers to 

get known to voters and really have 

an opportunity to break through the 

veil of anonymity that exists for most 

of them.

It’s important in the presidential 

nominating process, where most of 

the candidates are relatively unknown 

and they need the money to advertise 

themselves and their platforms and 

to build organizations. In a general 

election, it tends to be less important, 

because there’s a certain amount of 

“free” media attention, due to the 

importance of the contest at that 

point. There are televised debates 

that occur. People rely substantially 

on their party identification in 

viewing the candidates. Nonetheless, 

in a close election, money can still 

make a difference at the margin.

Q: In 2004, will it be sufficient for 

the Democratic Party presidential 

candidate to criticize President 

Bush as sitting president; or do 

the Democrats need some kind of 

positive theme to win the election?

A: For Democrats to be successful, 

they need two things. By far the 

most important is they need a reason 

for voters to deny George Bush a 

second term. That is not so much 

an alternative program as a negative 

referendum on how the country has 

been doing under George Bush’s 

leadership.

For Democrats to have a chance 

of regaining the White House and 

James A. Garfield, 

Republican 

(1881)

Chester A. Arthur, 

Republican 

(1881-1885)

20 v
regaining control of the Congress, 

they’re going to need a lot of voters 

who express something like this: “I 

feel less secure about my economic 

well-being and less secure physically 

because of the ambiguous success 

in the war against terrorism and the 

muddled situation in Iraq.” That’s 

a necessary though probably not 

sufficient condition for the Democrats 

to win the White House in 2004.

Secondly, the Democrats need 

to pass a threshold of credibility. 

They need to have a candidate 

who is trusted by the American 

people to protect our security and 

to pursue a policy course that isn’t 

wacky or extreme or seeming to pose 

more risks than opportunities for 

Americans.

So, yes, the Democrats have to 

nominate a candidate who puts 

forward a plausible national security 

strategy, a plausible economic and 

domestic policy strategy. Most 

Americans are not going to compare 

President Bush’s policy prescriptions 

directly with the Democrats’. But 

rather, in the case that Americans 

decide the President’s record does 

not necessarily merit renewal, they’re 

going to then take a closer look at the 

Democrats and say, “Can we trust 

them?” That’s where the opposition 

party has to have a plausible, positive 

alternative.

Q: There’s an old saw that during 

presidential primaries the candidates 

take more extreme positions as 

they pander to their party base 

– the Democrats on the left, the 

Republicans on the right. Is that the 

case and will it influence political 

behavior over the next year?

A: Successful presidential candidates 

have not fallen prey to that pattern 

in recent elections. George Bush 

in 2000, for example, figured out 

a way to run for the Republican 

nomination by offering substantive 

policy to his conservative base 

that made them very happy but 

using a rhetoric of moderation and 

compassion that prevented him from 

being characterized as extremely 

conservative or right-wing after he 

won the nomination.

Bill Clinton rejected the traditional 

left-vs-right approach within his own 

party and tried to appeal in other 

ways to both the base and the swing 

voters. Yes, activists in primaries tend 

to be more ideologically extreme, 

to the right for the Republicans, to 

the left for the Democrats; but it’s 

possible to frame appeals and issues 

in ways that don’t necessarily damage 

your position in the general election 

campaign.

Q: Do you see an increased role 

for the Internet in this presidential 

election?

A: The way to view the Internet in 

this context is not as a mode of mass 

communication, not as a substitute 

for television advertising. Instead, 

it has become important as a form of 

campaign organization – recruiting 

and organizing volunteers, raising 

money, coordinating grassroots 

activities, disseminating information 

to supporters. Howard Dean has 

built on John McCain’s success in the 

2000 election in raising substantial 

amounts of money over the Internet. 

Dean and other Democratic Party 

candidates are using it as a way of 

building organization.

For their part, the Bush forces also 

understand its importance. They’re 

making active use of the Internet, 

using it to raise money, build their 

local organizations, and to make sure 

they have a way of communicating 

with Republican activists in a way 

that both inspires and efficiently 

allocates resources.

So in those senses the Internet will 

be an important force in this election.

Q: Of course, there will be elections 

in the House and Senate as well, in 

addition to the presidential election. 

How do these races look?

A: Right now, we don’t see the 

makings of a landslide election for 

either party. It looks 

more likely to be a close 

election.

The Republican Party has been 

the majority party in the House 

of Representatives since the 1994 

election. They also had a narrow 

Senate majority, which they lost 

briefly when Republican Senator 

Jim Jeffords defected from his party 

and became an Independent. The 

Republicans regained their Senate 

majority in the 2002 election. Many 

analysts looking at the structure of 

House and Senate elections have 

concluded that Republicans are likely 

to hold that majority for the rest of 

the decade, absent some unforeseen 

tidal wave moving to the advantage of 

the Democratic Party.

That’s partly a result of the 

decline of the number of competitive 

electoral districts in the House 

of Representatives, which is a 

consequence of many factors. In 

recent years, this has resulted in part 

from the success of the Republicans 

in using the state-level redistricting 

process to more efficiently allocate 

their voters across congressional 

districts. In this coming election, out 

of 435 House races, we are likely 

to have only ten percent seriously 

contested. And, with the Republican 

advantage as the incumbent party, 

raising more money, and having 

had success in redistricting, the 

Republicans are the odds-on favorite 

to hold their majority.

In the Senate, there are more 

Democratic seats up than Republican 

seats. Remember, a third of the 

Senate is up for reelection in any 

given election year. They have 

staggered six-year terms. More 

Democratic seats are up and those 

Democratic seats tend to be in the 

“red” (more conservative) states, in 

states that George Bush won in 2000.

So, only if you have a presidential 

landslide in favor of the Democrats, 

would the Democrats have an 

opportunity to become the majority 

party in Congress. 

Grover Cleveland, 

Democrat 

(1885-1889) (1893-1897)

V 21
22 v 

hile the media will focus 

most of their attention on 

the presidential election 

in 2004, Americans will be 

voting at the same time to 

e l e c t thousands of others to a wide 

variety of offices. Elections for the 

U.S. Congress in particular may be as 

competitive and nearly as important as 

the presidential campaign. At present, 

the balance of power in the Congress 

between the two major political parties 

is quite close. Indeed, the Republicans 

hold only a 12-seat majority (out of 

435) in the lower chamber, the House 

of Representatives, and just 51 of the 

100 seats in the Senate, the upper 

chamber.

The congressional elections are 

important because of the central role 

the Congress plays in making policy. 

Unlike a parliamentary system, the 

American system is one of separate 

powers between Congress and the 

president. All laws are written in and 

must be passed by the Congress. Also 

as opposed to parliamentary systems, 

party discipline is often less strictly 

observed. Members of Congress are 

free to vote on policies as they think 

best, including what they think best 

for winning their own reelection. As 

a result, congressional leaders must 

put together a winning coalition 

one member at a time, rather than 

count on unified support from highly 

disciplined parties, thus making 

every congressional victory or defeat 

important for both parties. 

Having separate and independent 

elections for every office means that 

it is possible for one party to control 

the Congress while a member of 

the other party is president. This 

so-called divided government has 

become very common. Different 

parties have controlled the House 

and the presidency for 16 of the 

last 24 years. The Republicans have 

held the majority in the House since 

1994. They also controlled the Senate 

from 1994 until 2000, the last six of 

Democratic President Bill Clinton’s 

eight-year administration.

The 2000 elections ended with the 

Republicans winning the presidency 

and keeping their House majority. 

Both parties, however, held 50 Senate 

seats. The Constitution gives the vice 

president (Republican Dick Cheney) 

the tie-breaking vote in the Senate, 

so the Republicans held the majority 

by the very slimmest of margins 

after the 2000 election, yielding the 

Republicans unified control of the 

federal government.

In June 2001, Republican Senator 

James Jeffords quit the Republican 

Party, swinging control of the 

Senate back to the Democrats and 

re-creating a divided government. 

The Democrats, in turn, lost that 

tiny majority in the 2002 election, 

returning the Republicans to unified 

control. 

The House and the Senate have 

nearly equal powers, but their means 

of election are quite different. The 

Founders of the American Republic 

intended members of the House to 

be close to the public, reflecting its 

wishes and ambitions most faithfully 

in legislating. Therefore, the 

Founders designed the House to be 

relatively large and to have frequent 

(two-year) elections. Originally, a twoyear term was considered by some to 

be too long. Today, it is more common 

to be concerned that frequent election 

means that incumbents are always 

running for reelection and therefore 

seldom consider what is best for the 

nation, only what is best for their 

electoral fortunes.

Each House seat represents a 

geographic constituency, and every 

member is elected from a unique, or 

“single-member,” district by plurality 

rule; that is, the candidate with most 

votes wins election. Each of the 50 

states is assured of at least one seat 

in the House, with the rest allocated 

to the states by population. Alaska, for 

example, has a very small population 

and therefore holds only one seat in 

the House. California is the largest 

state and currently holds 53 seats. 

The Senate was designed to 

represent the states and, in fact, 

senators were originally selected 

by state legislatures. It was not 

until passage of the Seventeenth 

Amendment to the Constitution 

in 1913 that senators were directly 

elected by their state’s voters. Every 

state has two senators elected for 

six-year terms, with one-third of the 

Senate seats up for reelection every 

two years. In effect, then, senators 

are chosen by plurality vote of the 

electorate, with a state serving as a 

single-member district.

Elections that are decided by 

plurality rule, especially from singlemember districts, are very likely to 

result in a system with exactly two 

major political parties. This is so 

because any third-party candidate 

has very little chance of winning. 

Voters prefer to avoid “wasting” their 

votes on what they consider to be 

hopeless campaigns, and candidates 

who want to win election therefore 

avoid affiliation with any hopeless 

party. Since there is no “peripheral 

representation,” minority voices 

tend to be represented within one 

of the two strong parties rather than 

congressional

elections BY

JOHN H. ALDRICH

Benjamin Harrison, 

Republican 

(1889-1893)

w
V 23

FIGURE1:

CONTRIBUTIONS TO

U.S. HOUSE

CAMPAIGNS FROM

POLITICAL ACTION

COMMITTEES, BY

PARTY, 1983-2000

Source: U.S. Statistical 

Abstract

DEMOCRATS

REPUBLICANS

Vice President Dick Cheney casts a 

decisive vote in the U.S. Senate on 

May 23, 2003, in his role as president 

pro tem of that body. 

Veteran Democratic Senator Robert 

Byrd of West Virginia talks to a group 

outside the Senate chamber, 2003.

by splinter groups of less popular 

opinion. Throughout its history, the 

United States has never had more 

than two major parties. Today, even 

at the height of what are known as 

“candidate-centered” elections, third 

parties and candidates may often try, 

but they very rarely win elections. 

After the 2002 elections, just two of 

the 435 members of the U.S. House 

were independents, and there was 

only one independent senator in 

the 100-member Senate. All other 

seats in both houses were won by 

members of the Republican Party or 

the Democratic Party, America’s two 

major parties since 1860.

Throughout most of U.S. history, 

congressional elections were “party 

centered.” Because most voters had 

long-term loyalties toward one political 

party or the other, they tended to cast 

their votes along party lines. Members 

of Congress were often reelected, 

sometimes holding their position for 

decades, because a majority of their 

constituents supported their party. 

Their efforts as individual incumbents 

often only marginally added to or 

subtracted from their support. In more 

recent years, candidates’ personalities 

and issues have emerged as forces that 

add to the impact of party loyalties.

Indeed, since the 1960s, national 

elections have become increasingly 

candidate centered. The ability 

of candidates to campaign over 

television, to raise huge amounts 

of money, and to conduct polls and 

other aspects of modern campaigning 

has made the voter more aware of 

the candidate as an individual. As a 

result, voters tend to consider their 

impression of the strengths and 

weaknesses of the two candidates, 

in addition to weighing their party 

loyalties.

Candidate-centered voting is 

a major advantage to incumbent 

members of Congress. Incumbents, 

in general, receive far more exposure 

on television and in newspapers than 

those challenging them. With greater 

media exposure and substantial 

influence over public policy, 

incumbents are also able to raise far 

greater sums of money with which to 

campaign. For these reasons and more, 

incumbents who run for reelection 

are very likely to win. In 2002, 398 

House members ran for reelection, 

and only 16 were defeated, while a 

mere three out of 26 senators running 

for reelection lost. With a reelection 

rate of 88 percent for the Senate and 

96 percent for the House, it is fair 

to say that congressional elections 

are not just candidate centered but 

incumbent centered as well.

With more money and media 

coverage, incumbents win because 

they are known to the electorate, 

1999-00

120

100

80

60

40

20

0

1983-84 1985-86 1987-88 1989-90 1991-92 1993-94 1995-96

TWO YEAR ELECTION CYCLE

1997-98

MILLIONS OF DOLLARS
24 v 

FIGURE 2:

CONTRIBUTIONS TO

incumbent and

challenger

candidates to the 

U.S. house

from political

action 

committees,

1983-2000

while challengers often are not. 

Surveys have shown that more than 

nine in ten respondents recognize 

the name of their House or Senate 

incumbent, but barely more than 

half recognize the name of the major 

challenger, even at the end of the 

campaign. Because challengers are so 

little known, they have a very difficult 

time persuading those with money 

to give it to them. This leads to an 

unfortunate cycle in which potentially 

strong candidates often choose not to 

run against established incumbents, 

and those “long shots” who do run 

cannot raise money to get their 

campaigns started.

The amount of money contributed 

to congressional candidates by political 

action committees (PACs) suggests 

the importance of money, party, 

and incumbency in congressional 

elections. PAC contributions to the 

two major parties from 1983 until 

2000 (the last year for which such 

data are available) are shown in figure 

1 [see previous page]. This figure 

illustrates the overall increase in 

money flowing into elections over this 

period. Note also that the Democrats 

held a substantial advantage in PAC 

support through 1994, that is, during 

the years when they were the majority 

party. In the last three election cycles, 

the Republicans caught up to the 

Democrats in PAC support. With such 

close competition, both parties now 

receive virtually the same amount of 

contributions from PACs.

Figure 2 [above] shows PAC 

donations to incumbents and their 

challengers over the same time period. 

The massive advantage incumbents 

have in fund-raising is apparent 

every election. Indeed, the amount 

that PACs contribute to incumbents 

has increased substantially over the 

last two decades, while funds going 

to challengers have increased much 

less. This figure alone suggests why 

such a high proportion of incumbents 

are reelected.

When challengers do become 

known to the electorate, voters then 

are much more likely to treat the two 

candidates more equally, voting for the 

candidate with what the voter believes 

to be the stronger message.

What appeals are most effective in 

congressional elections? This, too, has 

changed, especially in the most recent 

elections.

Until recently, congressional 

elections were generally decided 

based on the specific interests and 

concerns of a district, and not on 

national issues. This was especially 

true in “midterm elections,” that 

is, those held in the middle of a 

president’s four-year term, and thus 

lacking in the inherently national 

focus of a presidential campaign. 

INCUMBENTS

CHALLENGERS

William McKinley, 

Republican 

(1897-1901)

120

100

80

60

40

20

0

1983-84 1985-86 1987-88 1989-90 1991-92 1993-94 1995-96 1997-98

TWO YEAR ELECTION CYCLE

MILLIONS OF DOLLARS

1999-00

140

160
V 25

This local focus of elections fit nicely 

with the rise of candidate-centered 

elections, enabling the candidates to 

tailor their appeals to their particular 

district. The 1994 elections were 

a watershed. The Republican Party 

carried a majority in the Senate and 

won an astonishing 52 seats away from 

the Democratic Party in the House 

to emerge with a majority there for 

the first time in 40 years. Part of the 

strategy of their leader, Speaker of the 

House Newt Gingrich, was a ten-point 

legislative program, called the Contract 

with America. The contract had been 

endorsed by a great majority of 

Republican candidates for the 

House early in the campaign and 

became especially important after 

the election. Gingrich promised 

– mostly successfully – that the new 

Republican majority would pass 

legislation inspired by the contract 

through the House in an amazingly 

rapid 100 days. This focus raised 

the profile of the Republican Party 

and its leadership. It therefore set 

a standard by which national issues 

and something like a national party 

platform would be a standard part of 

the midterm campaigns. 

The two midterm elections held 

since 1994 were as surprising as the 

1994 elections. In 1998, for the first 

time since 1934, the party of an 

incumbent president won seats (in 

this case, five seats and six seats, 

respectively) from the opposition party 

in the House. While the Republicans 

held on to their majority in Congress, 

they were perceived as essentially 

losing the 1998 elections. Many in 

the party blamed that “defeat” on the 

party’s failure to adopt a clear national 

stance on the issues. The Democrats 

failed to gain seats and win a majority 

2002, and once again, whether true or 

not, many party leaders traced that 

defeat to failure to outline a partisan 

national platform.

The dramatic twists and turns of 

congressional elections over the last 

decade make forecasting hazardous. 

Indeed, the most important points 

may well be that the old ways in 

which campaigns were conducted are 

no longer the most effective and that 

voters are in the process of changing 

how they reach their decisions. Still, 

there are some things to look for in 

2004.

The most pressing question for 

2004 is whether the Democrats can 

capture enough seats to regain the 

majority in the House. There are 

only 34 Senate seats up for election, 

19 currently held by Democrats. In 

addition, fewer Republicans had 

close races the last time out, and 22 

races will be in states that George 

W. Bush won in 2000. It therefore 

appears unlikely that the Democrats 

can anticipate winning any Senate 

seats. Hence, the Republican Senate 

majority appears safe, and attention 

will turn to the House.

Both parties are trying to recruit 

the strongest possible candidates and 

to mobilize resources for the House 

elections. A great deal depends 

upon recruitment of new candidates 

for the House, especially those who 

have electoral experience, such as 

members of state legislatures. Equally 

important, however, is the degree 

to which their party’s presidential 

nominee strengthens or weakens 

the chances of House candidates, 

particularly those running for seats not 

contested by the current occupant. 

The combination of experienced and 

effective candidates for the House 

and a strong campaign by the party’s 

presidential candidate can create the 

largest swings in seats between the 

two parties. 

In recent decades, the “length of 

presidential coattails” – that is, how 

many voters vote for the same party for 

Congress as they do for the president 

– have shortened. The two votes 

are relatively independent. Besides, 

in 2000, with the two presidential 

candidates receiving nearly the same 

vote, this tie could not advantage 

either party in the congressional 

races. With an incumbent expected 

to seek reelection and with such a 

close balance between the two parties 

in Congress, the partisan balance in 

Congress might well depend on the 

presidential vote. Should President 

George Bush be able to hold the high 

approval ratings he received during 

and immediately after the war with 

Iraq, he might well strengthen the 

hold of his party in both House and 

Senate. Should his approval ratings 

plummet due perhaps to economic 

issues, then he conceivably could take 

the decade-long Republican majority 

in the House along with him.

If national issues are increasingly 

important parts of congressional 

elections, the most important national 

Center: Rep. Kathleen Harris, R-Fla., 

shakes hands with Rep. 

Kendrick Meek, D-Fla., as they 

prepare for group photo of 

new members of the House of 

Representatives in November, 2002. 

Right margin, 

top to bottom: Democratic 

primary congressional 

candidate Denise Majette thanks 

supporters, Aug. 2002, in 

Decatur, Georgia. Texas Republican 

Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison 

waves after making acceptance 

speech outside the Texas 

State Capitol in Austin, Nov. 7, 2000. 

Rep. Ernie Fletcher, R-Ky., 

celebrates his reelection to Congress 

on the same date.
26 v 

force in 2004 will be the presidential 

candidates and their policy campaigns. 

This aspect is the hardest to forecast. 

On the Democratic side, the 

presidential nomination race as of this 

writing is wide open, with numerous 

candidates seeking the nomination and 

with no one of them yet emerging as 

front-runner. At this point, we cannot 

tell whether a liberal or moderate, or 

a pro- or anti-war candidate, will be at 

the top of the Democratic ticket. If, as 

expected, he chooses to run, we can be 

confident that President Bush will win 

renomination.

It is likely that domestic policies 

will re-emerge as the central issues 

in 2004. Still, the war on terrorism 

is likely to remain the one major 

foreign policy issue. It has been some 

time – since the fall of the Soviet 

Union – that international concerns 

have been of major importance in a 

presidential election, and how the two 

sides will frame the debate and how 

the public reacts are highly uncertain. 

At this moment, however, it appears 

that the U.S. economy is likely to be 

the dominant concern among voters. 

Once again, however, there is great 

uncertainty, in this case about whether 

the economy will be (and will be 

seen to be) improving strongly, and 

thus favor Republicans, or continue 

to be weak or even in recession, and 

thus make the economy an issue for 

Democratic resurgence. 

In sum, partisan control of the 

House and Senate is at stake in 

2004, due to the very close balance 

between the two parties that has been 

true over the last decade. There is 

therefore much at stake for American 

democracy, as the direction that policy 

takes will be very different if one 

party, the other, or neither is in control. 

To compound that uncertainty, the 

congressional outcomes may well be 

determined by the public’s reaction 

to the two presidential candidates; 

as well as who the Democratic Party 

candidates will be, what they will 

espouse, and how the public will react 

to them. All of this makes watching 

the 2004 contests unusually exciting.

John H. Aldrich (Ph.D., Rochester) is Pfizer-Pratt 

University Professor of Political Science at Duke 

University. He specializes in American politics and 

behavior, formal theory, and methodology. 

Books he has authored or co-authored include 

Why Parties?, Before the Convention, 

Linear Probability, Logit and Probit Models, 

and a series of books on elections. 

His book Change and Continuity in the 2000 

and 2002 Elections, 

was recently published. 

Top: Members of the House 

of Representatives are sworn in 

January 7, 1997, as the 105th

Congress begins. 

Bottom: 

President George W. Bush 

delivers his first address to a joint 

session of the U.S. 

Congress February 27, 2001.

Theodore Roosevelt, 

Republican 

(1901-1909)
V 27

any Americans love political 

polls. Others love to hate 

them. Those who love polls 

enjoy the game of politics 

– who is ahead, who has a 

chance to win, who has the most 

popular position on health care or the 

economy. These “political junkies” 

closely watch the job performance 

ratings of presidents, governors, and 

mayors. And many voters just seem 

to like the idea of being connected 

to others in their community or in 

the nation. In an era when more and 

more Americans are atomized in work 

cubicles or long commutes to and from 

work, polls give citizens a sense of 

where they stand in relation to others 

as part of a national community.

The pollster’s profession is a 

controversial one. We are often 

charged with going well beyond 

simply measuring fluctuations in 

public opinion with respect to issues 

and candidates, to manipulating 

voters, holding a guru’s sway over 

pliant elected officials, and ultimately 

affecting voter turnout as a result of 

elections. But in my two decades of 

experience as a professional pollster, 

I have found that those who complain 

the loudest about 

polls are the ones who can quote all 

the latest numbers most readily.

There was a time when only one or 

two polling organizations dominated 

the center stage. Today, in an era 

of instant news, the Internet, and 

24-hour cable news channels, large 

news holes are frequently filled with 

commissioned and non-commissioned 

opinion polls from various sources.

 While the first political poll 

was conducted in 1824 by the 

local newspaper in Harrisburg, 

Pennsylvania, independent polls did 

not become a staple of media news 

coverage of political campaigns until 

the 1930s. The earliest and best 

modern political polls were conducted 

by names like Gallup and Roper, and 

later joined by other U.S. household 

names such as Sindlinger, Yankelovich, 

and Harris. In addition, by the 1970s, 

all three major U.S. television network 

news operations were offering their 

own polls for the presidential races, 

and shortly thereafter for important 

statewide races for the governor’s 

office and for the U.S. Congress.

 Media polls – those conducted in 

the name of a news network and a 

newspaper partner (e.g., CBS/New 

York Times, ABC/Washington Post, 

NBC/Wall St. Journal) – differ in 

many ways from the polls conducted 

privately for candidates and political 

parties, and they have become an 

important part of the political process. 

The key difference is that media polls 

are public and are intended mainly 

to inform voters of which candidates 

are in the lead in a political contest. 

They are designed to be neutral 

and independent. This objectivity 

is particularly important because it 

prevents candidates from dissembling 

about their own “private” polls. For 

example, a candidate once could 

claim that his private polls showed 

him ahead, while the conventional 

wisdom

s u g g e s t e d 

o t h e r w i s e . 

Over the 

d e c a d e s ,

independent 

political polling

has offered an 

objective look

at election races, an assessment 

of each candidate’s strengths and 

weaknesses, and an examination of 

the demographic groups supporting 

each candidate. Such independent 

polling gives reporters and editors 

the ability to make and report 

honest assessments of the status of a 

campaign.

The kind of transparency found in 

independent polling offers a useful 

service for readers and viewers. 

But even independent polling can 

be problematic. In 1996, former 

Republican Senate leader Bob Dole 

challenged President Bill Clinton, 

the polls, the pundits, and the

elections

of 2004

 BY

JOHN ZOGBY

m

Top to bottom: A man reads 

the Chicago Tribune, 

May 1, 1968, announcing 

President Johnson’s 

decision not to run for reelection. 

Democratic presidential 

candidate Eugene McCarthy 

speaks to students 

at Cleveland’s Case 

Western Reserve University in 

April, 1968. 

Above:

Republican convention 

delegates support Senator 

Robert Dole for president, 

San Diego, 1996
28 v 

the incumbent Democrat, for the 

White House. While most polls 

showed Dole trailing by as much as 

25 points throughout the campaign, 

my own polls for Reuters showed a 

significantly closer race – perhaps 

in the 7- to 12-point range. In that 

race, however, other organizations’ 

network and major newspaper polls 

drove the media coverage. Thus, day 

in and day out, Dole was referred to 

as the candidate who was “seriously 

trailing” the president “by as many 

as 25 points.” When only the most 

lopsided polls are used as the basis 

for coverage of a campaign, they 

can seriously skew the reporting, 

suggest an outcome, and then 

become a self-fulfilling prophecy. 

It also does not make it any easier 

for the candidate to raise money 

or to receive a fair hearing.

Does this mean that preelection polls actually affect 

voter turnout and/or the 

results? Generally, the short 

answer is no. Although the 

Dole-Clinton coverage posed serious 

problems for Senator Dole, there is 

no hard evidence that Dole could 

have won the election. There is also 

no clear evidence showing that any 

candidate in a competitive race ever 

lost because of pre-election polls 

showing him behind.

Some, however, assert that there 

is too much polling today – so-called 

poll-ution. I have alluded to the 24-

hour cable news networks and their 

need to fill large news holes. That 

is one reason for the proliferation 

of political polls. Sheer competition 

among media organizations is certainly 

another factor. In 2000, there were 

at least 14 major independent polls 

during the campaign season, and their 

results were not always consistent. But 

voters should not complain – there is 

choice, and voters need to be good 

consumers when viewing polls, just as 

they should be when they buy a car or 

a house. There are some basic rules to 

follow in polling, and here is my guide 

to how best to look at the polls.

Sometimes, overnight polls are 

conducted after a major event such 

as the president’s annual State of 

the Union 

Address or a debate between 

candidates for political office. Often 

these polls are done in one night 

for quick publication the next day 

and feature a sample of only 500 

adults nationwide. While these 

“overnighters” might offer a fast 

reading on public reaction, experts 

believe they are flawed.

First of all, a sample of just 500 

citizens is too small for serious 

consideration in a nation of 280 

million people. It may be accurate 95 

percent of the time, plus or minus 4.5 

percent, but that really is not sufficient 

in a presidential or major state race. In 

addition, the 500-sample size, in my 

view, is not sufficient to produce 

the statistically significant subgroup 

analysis required in a national or major 

state election. 

There are other methodological 

problems as well. A one-night sample 

means that a broad representation of 

people might not have been at home. 

While pollsters will apply weights to 

their sample to make it more accurately 

reflect the demographics of the 

population, weighting procedures do 

not always compensate for groups that 

are substantially underrepresented. 

For example, an overnight poll could 

under represent African Americans. 

Or, on another night, the poll might 

have contacted too many African 

Americans from Nebraska or Kansas, 

and not enough from New York, 

Mississippi, or South Carolina. 

Another problem common to 

rushed polls is that they may survey 

“adults” instead of “likely voters.” 

The demographics between the 

two groups can be quite different. 

Generally, the adults pool includes 

more minorities, people from lowerincome households, and union 

members. Given that each of these 

groups leans toward the Democratic 

Party and its candidates, any 

overrepresentation in their numbers 

in a poll can skew the results.

Right:

Media employees 

work on 

their web site 

at the Democratic 

convention, 

August 17, 2000,

in Los Angeles.

William Howard Taft, 

Republican 

(1909-1913)
V 29

Woodrow Wilson, 

Democrat 

(1913-1921)

Watch for the sample size and 

makeup of a poll, then. A good 

national poll in the United States will 

pose questions to at least 1,000 likely 

voters and report a margin of sampling 

error of no more than plus or minus 

three points.

Like the Mona Lisa or a great work of 

fiction, even the most thorough polls 

are open to interpretation. They also 

establish a set of expectations for 

the reporters and pundits who read 

them. In this way, the pollster and 

the pundits establish that elusive 

animal known as “the conventional 

wisdom.” And both groups love to 

see candidates defy this conventional 

wisdom. Thus, there is a rich history 

of candidates who have risen from the 

“pack,” contrary to trends suggested 

by early polling results.

Take, for example, the case of 

Senator Eugene McCarthy in his 

crusade against the war in Vietnam 

and his race against President 

Lyndon Johnson in 1968. Although 

anti-war sentiment was developing 

in the United States, no one thought 

that a little-known senator from 

Minnesota could possibly mount a 

serious challenge to the powerful 

President Johnson. But when the 

votes were counted after the first 

(New Hampshire) primary contest, 

McCarthy garnered 41 percent of the 

vote to Johnson’s 49 percent. Although 

the president’s name was not even on 

the ballot and had to be written in 

by those wishing to vote for him, 

the pundits decided that McCarthy 

so far exceeded any expectations 

established in the pre-election polls 

that they declared him the victor. 

The McCarthy “victory” stunned the 

political world, and, within two weeks, 

President Johnson decided to not seek 

re-election.

A similar pundit-declared victory 

occurred in the Democratic primary 

in New Hampshire in 1972. South 

Dakota Senator George McGovern, 

who had briefly taken up the antiwar mantle in 1968 and then led 

a reform movement within the 

Democratic Party, challenged the 

clear front-runner for the presidential 

nomination, Senator Edmund Muskie. 

McGovern’s private polls showed that 

he could exceed 40 percent of the 

primary vote in New Hampshire; thus, 

he wisely suggested to the media that 

he would be happy with a 35 percent 

showing. When he scored 43 percent 

to Muskie’s 48 percent, the press 

argued that (as in 1968) the challenger 

had “won” by exceeding pundit 

expectations. As in 1968, the “victory” 

gave McGovern what historians argue 

are the greatest benefits of winning in 

New Hampshire: media, money, and 

momentum. McGovern went on to 

win the Democratic Party nomination 

for president, although he lost the 

general election in a landslide to 

Richard Nixon.

In 1976, former Georgia Governor 

Jimmy Carter was at first labeled 

“Jimmy Who” by the Washington 

press corps. Carter’s 28 percent 

showing in New Hampshire against 

five better-known Democratic 

candidates was enough to propel him 

into the front-runner status and the 

eventual nomination.

Thus, the lesson in all these cases 

is that pre-election polling potentially 

can be used to bolster the position of 

a front-runner or undercut it. Polling 

does, in fact, establish standards for 

coverage of campaigns and a sense 

of the conventional wisdom as to 

expectations for victory.

Exit polls have been a major staple in 

U.S. national and state elections since 

the 1970s. They also are arguably the 

most controversial polls conducted 

today because they attempt to predict 

election victories beyond the polling 

place door based on interviews with 

people who have just voted. Exit 

polls achieved particular infamy in the 

2000 U.S. presidential election, when 

they were misused by the television 

networks to make not one, but two, 

incorrect projections of the winner 

who had been selected by voters in 

Florida.

However, exit polls, when used 

properly, are a vital tool for pollsters, 

the press, and academics. Above 

and beyond their use in projecting 

winners early on election night, they 

provide experts 

and political 

Left to right. Republicans in 

Texas gather to watch 

the first televised debate 

between Al Gore and 

George W. Bush in 2000. 

A Los Angeles woman 

fills out an exit poll after voting 

in primary elections. 
30 v 

There is a lot of talk these days about 

lower polling response rates. When 

I started working in this profession, 

response rates averaged 65 percent -- 

that is, for every three people reached 

on the phone, two would agree to 

respond to a survey. Today, average 

response rates are about 30 percent, 

and they tend to be much lower 

in some metropolitan areas. Some 

pundits are ready to declare 

that polls are dead because of 

this. That is hardly the case. 

Lower response rates mean that 

it takes longer to complete polls, 

but it is still possible to get good 

samples.

Though much has been 

made about some polling 

firms – my company included 

– missing some major election 

calls, the fact is that we all 

generally are still able to obtain 

results well within the margins 

of sampling error. I think that 

having reasonable expectations 

for what polls can and cannot 

do, combined with the healthy 

skepticism of the consumer of 

political information, is the best 

approach to take as we all prepare 

for another major election year in 

2004. 

Pollster John Zogby is president 

and chief executive officer of Zogby 

International, a polling firm he founded 

in 1984. His firm has conducted 

surveys for Reuters and for NBC 

television, among other media. Zogby 

is the author of Decision 2002: Why 

the Republicans Gained. More 

information on his background is 

available at www.zogby.com

scientists with details of how specific 

demographic groups have voted and 

the expressed reasons for their vote. 

They also help pollsters develop voter 

turnout models for future elections 

– that is, a sense of how many of each 

demographic group can be expected to 

turn out for an election. This is vital to 

ensure that future-voter samples used 

for policy purposes are representative.

But exit polls become problematic 

when they are used to project a 

winner. No matter how good the 

sampling process involved in an exit 

poll, it is still sampling, which means 

that there is a margin of sampling 

error. This matters less if the election 

is a landslide, but in a close election, a 

one- or two-point margin of error looms 

large. Based on the pre-election polling 

and the exit polls throughout the day 

in 2000, there was no legitimate way 

that television networks could have 

possibly determined whether George 

W. Bush or Al Gore had won the state 

of Florida before all the votes were 

counted. The pressure to get the 

projection first trumped the pressure 

to get the projection right. 

This view may appear strange 

coming from a professional pollster, 

but I think that the exit poll crash in 

November 2000 was a good lesson to 

learn. We simply do not need to know 

who won an election before the actual 

returns come in. The election process 

will be better served if exit polls are 

used throughout the evening of the 

election solely to illuminate who 

voted and why they voted the way 

they did.

Warren G. Harding, 

Republican 

(1921-1923)

 Right: Candidate 

George W. Bush appears on 

TV talk show 

“Hardball with Chris 

Matthews” during 

his presidential campaign. 

Bottom: George W. Bush 

on TV talk show 

“Meet the Press.”
V 31

 prominent American politician 

once declared that “money is 

the mother’s milk of politics.” 

This is hardly surprising given 

that America’s democratic

form of government is based on free 

and open elections and a tradition 

of pluralism whereby competing 

interests vie to influence public 

policy. That characterization is 

especially apt today, as the size of 

the electorate necessitates reliance 

at least in elections for major office 

on mass media to communicate with 

voters. Broadcast time is an efficient 

but costly means of reaching mass 

audiences.

Candidates for public office in 

the United States typically rely on 

four sources for campaign funds: (1) 

individual citizens who make direct 

contributions; (2) their own political 

parties; (3) interest groups, often 

through political action committees 

(PACs); and (4) their personal and 

family resources. A fifth source 

– public funds – has also been 

available in some elections, most 

notably presidential elections, since 

the 1970s.

Growing reliance on the broadcast 

media and the professionalization of 

politics have led to increasingly costly 

election campaigns. Candidates for 

the presidency spent $607 million in 

the 2000 presidential election, while 

candidates for Congress spent just 

over $1 billion. The average winning 

candidate for the U.S. Senate spent 

$7.4 million that year, and the average 

winning candidate for the U.S. 

House of Representatives, $849,000. 

Spending by candidates, however, 

increasingly constitutes less and less 

of total expenditures to influence 

elections, as parties and interest 

groups play a greater role in direct 

voter communication.

Traditionally, political parties 

and interest groups focused their 

resources on monetary contributions 

to candidates, who spent money 

on voter contact, both to persuade 

voters through advertisements, 

mailings, etc. and to ensure that 

voters get to the polls to cast their 

ballots. In contemporary elections, 

political parties and interest groups 

both contribute to favored candidates 

and spend money more directly to 

maximize their own influence on the 

election outcome. This phenomenon 

makes it harder to monitor the 

flow of money in elections, and it 

has presented policy-makers with 

particular challenges in seeking to 

regulate money outside the direct 

control of candidates. 

Critics have long asserted that high 

spending in U.S. elections, combined 

with the reliance for funds on private 

sources, raises concerns about possible 

undue influence over public policy 

by wealthy donors and interests. 

Proposed solutions generally involve 

greater government regulation of 

money in politics, beginning with 

improved transparency to facilitate 

public awareness of election financing 

and to thus inhibit “special interests” 

from obstructing the perceived 

“public interest.” “Reformers” have 

been opposed by those who see 

election spending as proportionate 

with both the costs of goods and 

services in today’s economy and the 

the 

state of 

campaign

finance BY

JOSEPH E. CANTOR

Top: Rep. Marty Meehan, 

D-Mass. (left), and Rep. Chris Shays, 

R-Conn. (right), celebrate 

following a successful vote in the 

House of Representatives 

on campaign finance reform in March, 

2002. Center: Sen. Russ Feingold, 

D-Wis. (left), and Sen. John McCain, 

R-Ariz. (right), address the 

press in front of the U.S. Supreme 

Court in September, 2003, 

during a court hearing on the 

constitutionality of the 

McCain-Feingold campaign finance 

reform law.

a

Calvin Coolidge, 

Republican 

(1923-1929)
32 v 

size of government budgets. These 

observers see election spending as the 

price a democracy pays for electoral 

competition, with large contributions 

and expenditures by interest groups 

as the contemporary expression of 

America’s long-standing pluralism. 

The judicial branch of government 

often raises another issue involved 

in regulating campaign funding 

– whether restrictions on campaign 

giving and spending unduly limit 

donors’ constitutionally protected 

right to free speech in the political 

arena.

It might be said that the current 

U.S. system of campaign financing 

blends the philosophies of reformers, 

defenders of the existing system, 

and the judicial rulings that have set 

parameters on government regulation. 

It reflects both the laws that have been 

enacted – and upheld – and the way in 

which American politics has evolved.

Comparisons of the American system 

of election financing with those 

of other democracies can help us 

understand some unique aspects of 

the U.S. political system.

First and foremost is America’s 

departure from the parliamentary 

system used in most democracies, 

which places political parties at the 

center of the process of electing 

and then running the government. 

While parties play an important role 

in American elections, they are far 

less important than earlier in history, 

before the many reforms and other 

changes that occurred during the 20th 

century.

The United States has, for better 

or worse, a candidate-centered, rather 

than party-centered, electoral system. 

Candidates tend to be independent 

agents who do not owe their careers 

or nominations to party officials, but 

rather to primary election voters. 

While this independence has had 

certain salutary effects in terms of 

greater openness and accountability, 

it has undoubtedly added to election 

costs, as candidates need quasiindependent campaign machinery 

and funding sources. Likewise, many 

contemporary voters pride themselves 

on being independent of party labels, 

voting “for the person, not the party,” 

and thus placing a further burden 

on the candidate to communicate 

effectively as a public figure.

Another unique aspect of the U.S. 

system is the strong role in political 

processes of the well-defined rights of 

free speech and association guaranteed 

under the First Amendment to the 

U.S. Constitution. It is the judiciary’s 

role to decide whether enacted statutes 

are in conflict with those rights. In 

its landmark 1976 ruling – Buckley 

v. Valeo – the U.S. Supreme Court 

overturned limitations on amounts 

that campaigns, political parties, 

and interest groups could spend 

to communicate with voters, while 

permitting restrictions on sources of 

funds to entities involved in elections. 

The Court declared that limitations 

on expenditures to communicate with 

voters constituted an impermissible 

restriction on free speech. While 

the Court recognized that limits 

on sources (i.e., contributions) also 

involved curtailment of free speech, 

it held that reasonable limits could 

be justified by government’s need 

to protect the system from real or 

apparent corruption arising from 

quid pro quo relationships between 

campaign donors and candidates. By 

equating the right to spend money 

with the right of free speech, and by 

differentiating between money given 

to a candidate and money spent by a 

candidate, this and subsequent lower 

court rulings have had a profound 

effect on the regulation and flow of 

money in U.S. politics. 

Other democracies’ far greater use 

of the public treasury in financing 

elections marks another way in which 

the U.S. political system is different. 

Government subsidies to parties are 

common in the international arena, 

and free broadcasting privileges 

are often facilitated by government 

ownership of major broadcast stations, 

unlike in the United States. The 

combined effect of direct subsidies 

and free broadcast time is reduced 

pressure on politicians to raise 

campaign money.

Some Americans have long 

favored similar government subsidies 

for election campaigns, as well as 

having free or reduced-rate broadcast 

time mandated of private sector 

broadcasters. And they have had some 

success in getting their ideas enacted. 

These policies, however, have met 

with resistance on philosophical 

grounds (that is, requiring taxpayers 

to support candidates whom they 

may oppose) and on practical grounds 

(such as how to devise a completely 

fair system of subsidizing campaigns).

Those who support public funding 

for candidates succeeded in the 

1970s in enacting such a system for 

presidential elections and for some 

state and local elections as well, but 

not for elections of members of the 

U.S. Congress. Since 1976, majorparty presidential nominees have 

automatically qualified for a substantial 

Herbert Hoover, 

Republican 

(1929-1933)

Franklin D. Roosevelt, 

Democrat 

(1933-1945)
V 33

general election subsidy (some $67 

million each in 2000 for Republican 

George W. Bush and Democrat Al 

Gore). Parties receive subsidies for 

their nominating conventions, and, in 

primary elections, government funds 

are available to match small individual 

donations to candidates.

In exchange for receiving funding, 

candidates must agree to limits 

on campaign spending, which the 

Supreme Court permitted because 

of their voluntary nature. The 

effectiveness of these limits, however, 

has been eroded by the ability of 

interested individuals and groups to 

spend money to assist candidates in 

ways that are legal but are beyond the 

levels envisioned by federal law (“soft 

money,” as discussed below).

Since the 1970s, three major 

principles have governed federal 

campaign finance law in the United 

States, applying to all elections for 

president and the Congress. (Each of 

the 50 states has its own rules for state 

and local elections.) These principles 

are as follows.

 PUBLIC DISCLOSURE OF FINANCIAL

 ACTIVITY

Public visibility of money in elections, 

facilitating scrutiny by opposing parties 

and candidates and by the media, is seen 

as the greatest deterrent to corruption that 

might arise from campaign contributions 

and expenditures. About this aspect of 

government regulation, there is largely 

a consensus, at least in principle. At 

the federal level, this involves periodic 

reports, with aggregate totals and detailed 

breakdowns for amounts above $200. 

Corporations, national banks, and 

labor unions have long been prohibited 

from using funds from their treasuries 

– corporate profits and union-dues money 

– to influence federal elections (although 

many states allow such sources in their 

elections). These entities may, however, 

set up political action committees to raise 

voluntary donations from executives 

and stockholders and union members, 

respectively. These funds may be used 

in federal elections, thus bringing the 

sponsoring corporation’s or union’s 

influence to bear. Also prohibited in all 

U.S. elections are campaign funds from 

foreign nationals.

Federal law limits the amounts contributed 

to candidates, parties, and groups involved 

in federal elections, whether by individuals, 

PACs, or parties. An individual may give 

$2,000 to a candidate in an election and a 

total of $95,000 to all candidates, parties, 

and PACs in a two-year election cycle. A 

PAC can give $5,000 per election to a 

candidate, but there is no aggregate limit 

on all such contributions from 

a single entity.

The issues raised by money 

and politics have made 

campaign finance reform a 

perennial topic of debate 

in the United States. 

Throughout the 1980s and 

1990s, reform advocates 

sought unsuccessfully 

to augment the regulatory regime 

enacted in the 1970s so as to reduce 

the role and importance of money in 

the political system.

The law that was finally passed 

in 2002, however, bore little 

resemblance to its precursors. 

Whereas those measures sought to 

improve the existing federal regulatory 

system, the goal of the Bipartisan 

Campaign Reform Act of 2002, or 

BCRA (familiarly known as McCainFeingold for the two lead senators 

who sponsored the law), is to save 

that system, by bringing under federal 

regulation activities that proponents 

saw as circumventing federal 

campaign finance law.

Beginning in the 1980s, national 

political parties began to raise 

money in amounts far beyond what 

technically was permitted under 

federal law, although ostensibly not 

for use in federal elections per se. This 

return of the “fat cat” – the powerful, 

wealthy contributor presumably 

reigned in under the 1970s reforms 

– heralded the rise of “soft money” 

in American elections. The term 

describes funds that are raised and 

spent outside the federal election 

regulatory framework but that may 

have at least an indirect impact on 

federal elections (in contrast to “hard 

money,” which is raised and spent 

according to federal election law).

Typically, these soft-money 

donations, in amounts and from 

sources prohibited in federal elections, 

were distributed to affiliated state 

parties for use in grassroots operations 

and voter mobilization efforts. By 

bolstering such activities, they 

inevitably assisted federal candidates 

as well as the state and local races 

at which they purportedly were 

aimed. In addition, the concerted 

fund-raising efforts by national party 

officials and by federal candidates 

and officials suggested that these 

donations were sought primarily to 

Top to bottom: Democratic 

candidate for governor John Baldacci 

addresses supporters in 

June, 2002, in Augusta, Maine. 

The 2002 race was Maine’s 

first where candidates received 

public funds for their 

campaigns. President Bush 

waves to supporters at a 

fundraiser in Los Angeles in 

June, 2003. New York 

State Republican governor 

George Pataki shakes 

hands with a supporter during 

a fundraiser.

Harry S Truman, 

Democrat 

(1945-1953)

Dwight D. Eisenhower, 

Republican 

(1953-1961)
34 v 

assist federal candidates.

Only during the 1996 national 

elections, however, did the belief that 

the regulatory system was breaking 

down become pervasive. Not only 

was $900 million in soft money 

raised by the political parties that 

year, but interest groups and political 

parties discovered another way to 

influence federal elections outside of 

federal restrictions: election-related 

issue advocacy. This form of soft 

money involves communications that 

discuss candidates in conjunction 

with particular issue positions, but 

without explicitly urging the defeat or 

election of clearly identified 

candidates.

Because most lower 

courts have interpreted 

the Buckley v. Valeo ruling 

as requiring such explicit 

wording in order to 

subject communications 

to government regulation, groups 

could present public information that 

encouraged positive or negative views 

of public officials who also happened 

to be candidates in forthcoming 

elections, without being subject to 

federal election law restrictions. For 

1996 and subsequent elections, it 

was estimated that tens of millions 

of dollars were spent in this manner, 

with accurate levels impossible 

to determine because little or no 

disclosure was required.

The Impact of McCain-Feingold

After 1996, reformers shifted their 

focus from limits on PACs and 

campaign spending and on public 

financing to closing loopholes they 

perceived as rendering federal 

regulation of money in politics 

increasingly meaningless. The 

McCain-Feingold law of 2002 

generally bans national parties and 

federal candidates or officials from 

raising and spending soft money; 

likewise, it bans state and local parties 

from spending soft money on what are 

defined as “federal election activities.” 

With regard to issue advocacy, the new 

law requires disclosure of all political 

advertisements referring to clearly 

identified federal candidates broadcast 

within 30 days of a primary or 60 days 

of a general election, and it prohibits 

sponsorship with union or corporate 

treasury funds.

Throughout the years of 

debate preceding passage of 

McCain-Feingold, the question 

of constitutionality hung over the 

discussions. This was perhaps 

inevitable given the experience of the 

1976 Buckley v. Valeo ruling, which left 

in its wake a system not envisioned 

by Congress but with far-reaching 

implications for the flow of money 

in federal elections. The closer the 

legislation came to enactment, the 

more the question of constitutionality 

became the focus of the debate. With 

campaigning for the 2004 elections 

already under way and politicians 

seeking to adapt to the new law, the 

political community eagerly awaits the 

expedited judicial review mandated 

by McCain-Feingold.

On May 2, 2003, the first of these 

rulings came when the U.S. District 

Court for the District of Columbia, 

in McConnell v. FEC, struck down the 

blanket prohibition on soft-money 

raising by national parties and its use 

by state and local parties, but retained 

the bans on public communications 

that may more directly affect federal 

elections and on soft-money raising 

by federal candidates and officials. 

In addition, the court struck down the 

regulation of all broadcast ads referring 

to federal candidates, based on time 

period, but surprised observers by 

allowing regulation based on the more 

subjective standard of whether an 

advertisement supported or opposed a 

federal candidate, regardless of when 

it was disseminated. This ruling was 

later stayed, to minimize confusion 

for those already campaigning for 

the 2004 elections, pending a final 

decision by the Supreme Court, 

which will hear oral arguments in 

September.

Will the Supreme Court follow its 

general pattern since the Buckley v. 

Valeo decision and reject the new law’s 

extension of regulation in the free 

speech arena? Or will it be persuaded 

by voluminous evidence and years 

of experience with the former law 

that the dangers of corruption and 

excessive influence by wealthy 

individuals and groups may warrant 

greater regulation than it might 

otherwise prefer? What is clear is 

that the forthcoming Supreme Court 

ruling will have a profound effect on 

future efforts to regulate the flow of 

money in politics. 

 

Joseph E. Cantor is a specialist in American 

national government at the Congressional Research 

Service, a department of the Library of Congress. 

He began his career there in 1973 after completing 

his Bachelor’s Degree from the Johns Hopkins 

University. He has specialized in campaign finance 

since 1979, in which capacity he has helped to inform 

Congress about this subject and to analyze the 

issues involved and the proposals for changes in 

relevant law.

John F. Kennedy, 

Democrat 

(1961-1963)

California state assembly 

Republicans announce the formation 

of a new political action 

committee in May, 1999, 

designed to promote 

Latino participation in the 

federal and state 

political process. 
V 35

Caucus – A meeting, in particular 

a meeting of people whose goal is 

political or organizational change. In 

American presidential politics, the 

word has come to mean a gathering 

of each party’s local political activists 

during the presidential nomination 

process. In a “layered” caucus system, 

local party activists, working at the 

precinct level, select delegates to 

county meetings, who in turn select 

delegates to state meetings. These 

state-level conventions select delegates 

to their party’s national nominating 

convention. The purpose of the caucus 

system is to indicate, through delegate 

choice, which presidential candidate 

is preferred by each state party’s 

members. Its effect is to democratize 

presidential nominations, since 

candidate preferences are essentially 

determined at the precinct level, at the 

beginning of the process.

Coattails – An allusion to the rear 

panels (“tails”) of a gentleman’s frock 

coat. In American politics, it refers to 

the ability of a popular officeholder or 

candidate for office, on the strength of 

his or her own popularity, to increase 

the chances for victory of other 

candidates of the same political party. 

This candidate is said to carry others to 

victory “on his coattails.”

Conservative – Any shade of political 

opinion from moderately right-of-center 

to firmly right-of-center. Of the two 

major parties in the United States, 

the Republican Party is generally 

considered to be the more conservative. 

Political conservatives in the United 

States usually support free-market 

economic principles and low taxes, and 

distrust federal, as opposed to state and 

local, government power.

Convention bounce – An increase in 

a presidential candidate’s popularity, as 

indicated by public opinion polls, in the 

days immediately following his or her 

nomination for office at the Republican 

or Democratic national convention.

Debate – A discussion involving two 

or more opposing sides of an issue. 

In American politics in recent years, 

debates have come to be associated 

with televised programs at which 

all candidates for the presidency or 

the vice presidency present their 

own and their party’s views in 

response to questions from the media or 

members of the audience. Debates may 

also be held via radio or at a meeting 

place for community members, and 

they may be held for elective office at 

all levels of government.

Divided government – A term that 

generally refers to a situation where 

the president is a member of one 

political party and at least one chamber 

of Congress (either the Senate or the 

House of Representatives) is controlled 

by the opposite party. This situation 

can also exist at the state level, with 

one party controlling the governorship, 

and another controlling the state 

legislature. Divided government 

frequently occurs in the U.S. political 

system. Its historical impact has been 

to discourage radical change and to 

motivate politicians of both parties to 

compromise on proposed legislation.

Electoral College – When American 

voters go to the polls to vote for 

president, many believe that they are 

participating in a direct election of 

the president. Technically, this is not 

the case, due to the existence of the 

electoral college, a constitutional relic 

of the 18th century. The electoral 

college is the name given a group of 

“electors” who are nominated by party 

members within the states. On election 

day, these electors, pledged to one 

or another candidate, are popularly 

elected. In December, following the 

presidential vote, the electors meet in 

their respective state capitals and cast 

ballots for president and vice president. 

To be elected, a president requires 270 

electoral votes.

Federal Election Commission (FEC)

– An independent regulatory agency 

charged with administering and 

enforcing federal campaign finance law. 

The FEC was established by the 1974 

amendment of the Federal Election 

Campaign Act of 1971.

Front-loading – The practice of 

scheduling state party caucuses and 

state primary elections earlier and 

earlier in advance of the general 

election. By moving their primaries to 

early dates, states hope to lend decisive 

momentum to one or two presidential 

candidates and thus have a significant 

influence on each party’s nomination.

Front-runner – A candidate in any 

election or nomination process who is 

considered to be the most popular or 

likely to win.

Gender gap – In recent elections, 

American women have tended to vote 

in patterns different from those of 

men, often preferring Democratic to 

Republican candidates or candidates 

on the more liberal side of the political 

spectrum. The press has dubbed this 

phenomenon the “gender gap.”

Hard money/soft money – Terms 

used to differentiate between campaign 

funding that is and is not regulated by 

federal campaign finance law. Hard 

money is regulated by law and can 

be used to influence the outcome of 

federal elections – that is, to advocate 

the election of specific candidates. 

Soft money is not regulated by law and 

can be spent only on activities that do 

not affect the election of candidates 

for national office – that is, for such 

things as voter registration drives, partybuilding activities, and administrative 

costs, and to help state and local 

candidates.

Horse race – Used as a metaphor for 

an election campaign, “horse race” 

conveys the feeling of excitement that 

people experience when watching a 

sporting event. The term also refers to 

media coverage of campaigns, which 

frequently emphasizes the candidates’ 

standings in public opinion polls – as if 

they were horses in a race — instead of 

the candidates’ stands on the issues.

Liberal – In the U.S. political 

spectrum, “liberals” are said to be 

slightly left-of-center or somewhat 

left-of-center. Of the two main political 

parties, the Democrats are thought to 

be more liberal, as the term is currently 

defined. “Political” liberals tend to 

favor greater federal power to remedy 

perceived social inequities; in the 

cultural sphere, liberals tend to support 

feminism, minority rights, and emphasis 

on freedoms of personal behavior.

elections

2004

glossary

Lyndon B. Johnson, 

Democrat 

(1963-1969)

Richard M. Nixon, 

Republican 

(1969-1974)

Gerald Ford, 

Republican 

(1974-1977)
36 v 

Midterm election – An election for 

seats in the U.S. Senate and House of 

Representatives that occurs during a 

presidential term of office – that is, two 

years into the four-year presidential 

term. The results are sometimes 

interpreted as a popular referendum 

on that president’s performance for the 

first two years of his term. Midterm 

elections determine some members of 

the U.S. Senate and all members of the 

House of Representatives, as well as 

many state and local officials.

Negative ads – Advertisements that 

try to persuade voters to vote for one 

candidate by making the opponent look 

bad, by attacking either the opponent’s 

character or record on the issues.

Platform – In the context of U.S. 

presidential politics, this term refers 

to a political party’s formal written 

statement of its principles and goals, 

put together and issued during the 

presidential nomination process. In 

recent years, the party platforms have 

become less important as television 

has focused more on each candidate’s 

personality and perceived leadership 

ability.

Plurality rule – A method of 

identifying the winning candidate in an 

election. A plurality of votes is the total 

vote received by a candidate greater 

than that received by any opponent but 

often less than a 50 percent majority 

of the vote. That is, if one candidate 

receives 30 percent of the votes, a 

second candidate also receives 30 

percent, and a third receives 40 percent, 

the third candidate has a plurality of the 

votes and wins the election.

Primary election – An electoral 

contest held to choose a political party’s 

candidate for a particular public office. 

Primaries may be held at all levels of 

government, including local contests 

for mayor, district races for the U.S. 

House of Representatives, statewide 

elections for governor or U.S. senator, 

and president of the United States. 

In “closed” primaries, only registered 

members of a party may vote. In 

“open” primaries, voters of one party 

(called “cross-over” voters) may vote in 

another party’s primary. 

Primaries for presidential candidates 

are held at the state level to indicate 

who the people of that state prefer to 

be the parties’ candidates. Depending 

on state law, voters cast ballots 

directly for the presidential candidate 

they prefer or for delegates who are 

“pledged” to support that presidential 

candidate at convention time. State 

primary elections, if early enough in the 

political season, can occasionally stop 

leading presidential candidates in their 

tracks and create a surge of support 

for a lesser-known candidate. Note 

that primaries are an alternative to the 

“caucus” system of candidate selection.

Protest vote - A vote for a third- or 

minor-party candidate made without 

much hope of electing that candidate 

but intended to indicate displeasure 

with the candidates of the two major 

political parties. 

Redistricting – The process of 

redrawing the geographic boundaries 

of congressional districts, the 

electoral districts within states from 

which members of the House of 

Representatives are elected. Both 

Democrats and Republicans at the 

state level compete to get hold of 

the legal and political mechanisms of 

redistricting – usually by controlling 

the state legislature. By doing so, they 

can redraw boundaries of congressional 

districts in ways that will lend an 

electoral advantage to their own party.

Regionalization – The 50 United 

States are unofficially grouped into 

approximately six regions in which 

states share certain geographic and 

cultural traits with each other. During 

the presidential primary season, 

“regionalization” refers to the practice 

of states’ joining with other states in 

their region to maximize the effect of 

the region on the electoral process, 

often by holding their primary elections 

on the same day.

Single-member district – The current 

arrangement for electing national and 

state legislators in the United States 

in which one candidate is elected in 

each legislative district; the winner is 

the candidate with the most votes. The 

single-member system allows only one 

party to win in any given district. This 

is directly opposite to the proportional 

system, in which much larger districts 

are used and several members are 

elected at one time based on the 

proportion of votes their parties receive.

Sound bite – A brief, very quotable 

remark by a candidate for office that is 

repeated on radio and television news 

programs.

Spin doctor/spin – A media adviser 

or political consultant employed by a 

campaign to ensure that the candidate 

receives the best possible publicity 

in any given situation. For example, 

after a debate between the presidential 

candidates, each candidate’s “spin 

doctors” will seek out journalists so 

they can point out their candidate’s 

strengths in the debate and try to 

convince the press, and by extension 

the public, that their candidate “won” 

the debate. When these media advisers 

practice their craft, they are said to 

be “spinning” or putting “spin” on a 

situation or event.

Third party – In the United States, 

any political party that is not one of 

the two parties that have dominated 

U.S. politics in the 20th century: the 

Republican Party and the Democratic 

Party.

Ticket splitting – Voting for 

candidates of different political parties 

in the same election – say, voting 

for a Democrat for president and a 

Republican for senator. Because ticket 

splitters do not vote for all of one party’s 

candidates, they are said to “split” their 

votes.

Town meeting – An informal gathering 

of an officeholder or candidate for office 

with a group of people, often local, 

where the atmosphere is egalitarian and 

informal, and where members of the 

audience can pose questions directly to 

the officeholder or candidate.

Tracking survey – A type of publicopinion poll that allows candidates to 

follow, or “track,” voters’ sentiments 

over the course of a campaign. For the 

initial survey, the pollster interviews 

the same number of voters on three 

consecutive nights – for example, 400 

voters a night, for a total sample of 

1,200 people. On the fourth night, the 

pollster interviews 400 more voters, 

adds their responses to the poll data, 

and drops the responses from the first 

night. Continuing in this way, the 

sample rolls along at a constant 1,200 

responses drawn from the previous 

three nights. Over time, the campaign 

can analyze the data from the entire 

survey and observe the effect of certain 

events on voters’ attitudes.

Jimmy Carter, 

Democrat 

(1977-1981)

Ronald Reagan, 

Republican 

(1981-1989)

36 v

George Bush, 

Republican 

(1989-1993)
V 37

Bill Clinton, 

Democrat 

(1993-2001)

George W. Bush, 

Republican 

(2001-present)

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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

BUREAU OF INTERNATIONAL INFORMATION PROGRAMS

http://usinfo.state.gov/