Violence and Voting in the United States: How School Shootings Affect Elections

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
LAURA GARCÍA-MONTOYA ◽  
ANA ARJONA ◽  
MATTHEW LACOMBE
Keyword(s):  
Political Behavior ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The United States ◽  
School Shootings ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
Voting Decisions ◽  
The One

How do citizens change their voting decisions after their communities experience catastrophic violent events? The literature on the behavioral effects of violence, on the one hand, and on political behavior, on the other, suggest different answers to this question. Using a difference-in-differences approach, we investigate the influence of indiscriminate, rampage-style school shootings on both voter turnout levels and the relative electoral support for the Democratic and Republican Parties at the county level in US presidential elections (1980–2016). We find that although voter turnout does not change, the vote share of the Democratic Party increases by an average of nearly 5 percentage points in counties that experienced shootings—a remarkable shift in an age of partisan polarization and close presidential elections. These results show that school shootings do have important electoral consequences and bring to the fore the need to further examine the effects of different forms of violence on political behavior.

Bases Loaded

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Costas Panagopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Campaigns ◽  
Political Campaign ◽  
Voter Mobilization ◽  
Campaign Strategy ◽  
Partisan Polarization ◽  
The Past ◽  
Swing Voters ◽  
Fundamental Shift

Over the past few decades, a fundamental shift in political campaign strategy has been afoot in U.S. elections: Political campaigns have been gradually shifting their attention away from swing voters toward their respective, partisan bases. Independents and weak partisans have been targeted with less frequency, and the emphasis in contemporary elections has been on strong partisans. This book documents this shift—away from persuasion toward base mobilization—in the context of U.S. presidential elections and explains that this phenomenon is likely linked to several developments, including advances in campaign technology and voter-targeting capabilities as well as insights from behavioral social science focusing on voter mobilization. The analyses show the 2000 presidential election represents a watershed cycle that punctuated this shift. The book also explores the implications of the shift toward base mobilization and links these developments to growing turnout rates for strong partisans and attenuating participation among independents or swing voters over time. The book concludes these patterns have contributed to heightened partisan polarization in the United States.

Is Distance to Drop Box an Appropriate Proxy for Drop Box Treatment? A Case Study of Washington State

2021 ◽  
pp. 1532673X2110221
Author(s):  
Loren Collingwood ◽  
Benjamin Gonzalez O’Brien
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
The United States ◽  
Washington State ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Primary 52 ◽  
The One ◽  
Vote By Mail

In the United States, drop box mail-in voting has increased, particularly in the all vote by mail (VBM) states of Washington, Colorado, Utah, and Oregon. To assess if drop boxes improve voter turnout, research proxies box treatment by voters’ residence distance to nearest drop box. However, no research has tested the assumption that voters use drop boxes nearest their residence more so than they do other drop boxes. Using individual-level voter data from a 2020 Washington State election, we show that voters are more likely to use the nearest drop box to their residence relative to other drop boxes. In Washington’s 2020 August primary, 52% of drop box voters in our data used their nearest drop box. Moreover, those who either (1) vote by mail, or (2) used a different drop box from the one closest to their residence live further away from their closest drop box. Implications are discussed.

Estimating the Electoral Effects of Voter Turnout

2010 ◽  
Vol 104 (2) ◽  
pp. 268-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
THOMAS G. HANSFORD ◽  
BRAD T. GOMEZ
Keyword(s):  
Voter Turnout ◽  
Instrumental Variable ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Empirical Test ◽  
The United States ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Level Data ◽  
Electoral Choice ◽  
High Turnout ◽  
Specific Factors

This article examines the electoral consequences of variation in voter turnout in the United States. Existing scholarship focuses on the claim that high turnout benefits Democrats, but evidence supporting this conjecture is variable and controversial. Previous work, however, does not account for endogeneity between turnout and electoral choice, and thus, causal claims are questionable. Using election day rainfall as an instrumental variable for voter turnout, we are able to estimate the effect of variation in turnout due to across-the-board changes in the utility of voting. We re-examine the Partisan Effects and Two-Effects Hypotheses, provide an empirical test of an Anti-Incumbent Hypothesis, and propose a Volatility Hypothesis, which posits that high turnout produces less predictable electoral outcomes. Using county-level data from the 1948–2000 presidential elections, we find support for each hypothesis. Failing to address the endogeneity problem would lead researchers to incorrectly reject all but the Anti-Incumbent Hypothesis. The effect of variation in turnout on electoral outcomes appears quite meaningful. Although election-specific factors other than turnout have the greatest influence on who wins an election, variation in turnout significantly affects vote shares at the county, national, and Electoral College levels.

A Discussion of Ismail K. White and Chryl N. Laird’s Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (1) ◽  
pp. 209-210
Author(s):  
Michael Leo Owens
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Behavioral Norm ◽  
Black Political Behavior

Charge: As Ismail K. White and Chryl N. Laird note, collectively more than 80% of African Americans self-identify as Democrats according to surveys, and no Republican presidential candidate has won more than 13% of the Black vote since 1968. This is true despite the fact that at the individual level many African Americans are increasingly politically moderate and even conservative. Against this backdrop, what explains the enduring nature of African American support for the Democratic Party? In Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior, White and Laird answer this question by developing the concept of “racialized social constraint,” a unifying behavioral norm meant to empower African Americans as a group and developed through a shared history of struggle against oppression and for freedom and equality. White and Laird consider the historical development of this norm, how it is enforced, and its efficacy both in creating party loyalty and as a path to Black political power in the United States. On the cusp of perhaps the most consequential presidential election in American history, one for which African American turnout was crucial, we asked a range of leading political scientists to assess the relative strengths, weaknesses, and ramifications of this argument.

scholarly journals Kandydaci Partii Demokratycznej i Republikańskiej wobec przemian społeczno- gospodarczych. Analiza na przykładzie wyborów prezydenckich z lat 2008 i 2012

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 92-108
Author(s):  
Kamil Weber
Keyword(s):  
Democratic Party ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
The United States ◽  
Standard Of Living ◽  
Tea Party ◽  
Economic Changes ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
Head Of State ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Subject

The candidates of the Democratic Party and the Republican Partyin the face of the socio-economic changes. An analysis based on the example of presidential elections of 2008 and 2012American society has been the subject of many changes in recent years. In this context, important was an increasing liberalization of communities of large cities. But also, as a response to this process, there could be seen a growing influence of the conservative Tea Party supporters. Changes in the national structure consisting of reducing the share of white community for African Americans and immigrants are also noticeable. Important implications also caused the recent economic crisis resulting in differentiation of the standard of living of different social groups. It is therefore interesting to analyze how two major American parties responded to these changes. The ground for such an analysis are especially presidential elections because of the importance that the head of state has in the policy of the United States.

The Politics of Contentment

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kenneth Galbraith
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Electoral Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Self ◽  
Industrial Countries ◽  
Small Minority ◽  
Modern Politics

This chapter focuses on the politics of contentment. In the past, the contented and the self-approving were a small minority in any national entity, with the majority of the citizenry being relegated outside. In the United States, the favored are now numerous, greatly influential of voice and a majority of those who vote. This, and not the division of voters as between political parties, is what defines modern American political behavior and shapes modern politics. The chapter first considers the commitment of the Republican Party and the Democratic Party to the policies of contentment before discussing the effects of money and media on the politics of contentment. It also examines American electoral politics, social exclusion, and international relations in the context of the politics of contentment. Finally, it tackles the question of whether, and to what extent, the politics of contentment in the United States extends to other industrial countries.

Field Experiments on Political Behavior

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter John
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Political Behavior ◽  
Voter Turnout ◽  
External Validity ◽  
Field Experiments ◽  
Political Attitudes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Causal Relationships ◽  
The Impact ◽  
The U.S

Field experiments allow researchers on political behavior to test causal relationships between mobilization and a range of outcomes, in particular, voter turnout. These studies have rapidly increased in number since 2000, many assessing the impact of nonpartisan Get-Out-the-Vote (GOTV) campaigns. A more recent wave of experiments assesses ways of persuading voters to change their choice of party or alter their social and political attitudes. Many studies reveal positive impacts for these interventions, especially for GOTV. However, there are far fewer trials carried out outside the United States, which means it is hard to confirm external validity beyond the U.S. context, even though many comparative experiments reproduce U.S. findings. Current studies, both in the United States and elsewhere, are growing in methodological sophistication and are leveraging new ways of measuring political behavior and attitudes.

Introduction

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas R. Seabrook
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
State Government ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
The United States ◽  
State Legislature ◽  
Federal Courts ◽  
The State ◽  
Electoral Support ◽  
First Time ◽  
Considerable Pressure

As the results of the 2002 election flashed across their television screens, Texas’s congressional Republicans could be forgiven for feeling a certain amount of dissatisfaction with the redistricting process in the United States. Their party had seen its share of the statewide vote in U.S. House elections increase from 49.8 percent in 1992 to 54.9 percent in 2002. Yet, even with this latest ten-point victory over the Democrats in the popular vote, they had once again failed to convert their increasingly dominant electoral support into a Republican majority in the state’s congressional delegation. A partisan gerrymander, passed in the wake of the 1990 Census and left largely intact by the district boundaries implemented by the federal courts following the 2000 Census, had allowed the Democratic Party to maintain its overall majority in the Texas delegation for more than a decade. The Democrats won twenty-one of Texas’s thirty seats in Congress in 1992, and managed to retain control of nineteen in 1994 and seventeen from 1996 to 2000, despite averaging just 45.8 percent of the two-party vote in these elections. In 2003, the Texas Republicans, armed for the first time with control of both houses of the state legislature and the governorship, undertook an unprecedented mid-decade redrawing of the state’s congressional boundaries. Though many Republicans in the state government were opposed to the idea of redrawing the district boundaries mid-decade, the effort was initiated under considerable pressure from Republicans in Congress, most notably House majority leader Tom DeLay (...

The Gender Gap Is a Race Gap: Women Voters in US Presidential Elections

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 1135-1145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jane Junn ◽  
Natalie Masuoka
Keyword(s):  
Gender Gap ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
White Women ◽  
Party Identification ◽  
The United States ◽  
Election Study ◽  
National Election Study ◽  
American National Election Study

Scholarship on women voters in the United States has focused on the gender gap, showing that, since the 1980s, women are more likely to vote for Democratic Party candidates than men. The persistence of the gender gap has nurtured the conclusion that women are Democrats. This article presents evidence upending that conventional wisdom. It analyzes data from the American National Election Study to demonstrate that white women are the only group of female voters who support Republican Party candidates for president. They have done so by a majority in all but 2 of the last 18 elections. The relevance of race for partisan choice among women voters is estimated with data collected in 2008, 2012, and 2016, and the significance of being white is identified after accounting for political party identification and other predictors.

Electoral Vulnerability, Party Affiliation, and Dyadic Constituency Responsiveness in U.S. Legislatures

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 484-491
Author(s):  
Nathalie Giger ◽  
Heike Klüver ◽  
Christopher Witko
Keyword(s):  
Republican Party ◽  
Voting Behavior ◽  
Democratic Party ◽  
Median Voter ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Affiliation ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Policy Proposal ◽  
Voter Preferences ◽  
Voting Decisions

It is often argued that electoral vulnerability is critical to constituency responsiveness. We investigate this possibility using different measures of vulnerability, but argue that in the United States the Republican Party may be less responsive than the Democratic Party due to its core constituency and view of representation. We test our hypotheses relying on an innovative research design that exploits referenda in U.S. states to compare legislator voting behavior with voter preferences on exactly the same policy proposal, allowing us to overcome the measurement problems of much previous research. Based on a newly compiled data set of more than 3,000 voting decisions for 818 legislators on 27 referenda, we find high levels of congruence, but that congruence with the median voter is higher for legislators who are running for reelection. We also find that Democrats are more responsive after a close election but that Republicans are not sensitive to electoral margins.

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