scholarly journals Explaining Electoral Change in the 2018 US Midterm Elections: The Three Components of Electoral Mandates

The Forum ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 477-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Performance Evaluations ◽  
Vote Outcome ◽  
Electoral Vote ◽  
Behavior Difficulties ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
Electoral Change ◽  
Three Components

Abstract Why did the American electorate elect a solid majority of Republicans to the House in 2016 and then 2 years later replace it with a solid majority of Democrats? This article revives the idea of an electoral mandate and applies it to the 2016 and 2018 elections. It proposes a trinity of partisan attitudes serving as the components of electoral mandates: performance, values, and leadership. The election of President Trump in 2016 depended on a mix of performance evaluations (a weak economy) favoring the Republicans and leadership evaluations (Trump’s behavior difficulties) muted by value considerations (conservative anger at being unrepresented and the necessity of a choice between Trump and Clinton). These offsetting partisan attitudes made the election close enough that a small number of votes in key states decided the electoral vote outcome. In 2018, performance evaluations again favored Republicans, but now because they presided over a stronger economy. Evaluations of Trump’s leadership remained negative. The interaction of values with these leadership assessments now favored Democrats. As the out-party, polarized liberals were motivated by anti-Trump anger. Never-Trump conservatives who had drifted back to vote Republican at the end of the 2016 campaign did not feel that same pressure without the presidency being at stake. About two-thirds of voters in 2018 said their vote was about Trump. Republicans lost to Democrats among these voters by 16 percentage points. Republicans delivered on their 2016 mandate to boost the economy, but had failed to provide leadership that many Americans could feel comfortable with.

Clashes Involving National Popular Vote, Hare (“RCV”), Maine, Alaska

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Richard F. Potthoff
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Constitutional Amendment ◽  
Popular Vote ◽  
Plurality Vote ◽  
Electoral Vote ◽  
Electoral Change ◽  
Election System ◽  
Voting System ◽  
Us Presidential Election ◽  
Election Results

ABSTRACT Apparently unnoticed by its advocates, a prominent effort to improve the troubled US presidential-election system—the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC)—is on a collision course with another effort at electoral change—“ranked-choice voting” (RCV, known previously by less ambiguous names). The NPVIC is a clever device intended, without constitutional amendment, to elect as president the nationwide popular-vote winner (i.e., the plurality-vote winner) rather than the electoral-vote winner. Election results in 2000, 2016, and 2020 enhanced its support. However, the (constitutional) ability of even one state to replace its plurality voting with another voting system causes the popular-vote total posited for the NPVIC to be undefined, thereby rendering the NPVIC unusable. Maine and Alaska recently switched from plurality voting to RCV for presidential elections. Consequently, tangled results and turmoil could occur with the NPVIC. To improve presidential elections, replacing plurality voting with other systems appears to be more sensible than pursuing the NPVIC.

Forecasts of the 2010 Midterm Elections

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (04) ◽  
pp. 625-626 ◽  
Author(s):  
James E. Campbell
Keyword(s):  
Midterm Elections ◽  
Electoral Change ◽  
Previous Election ◽  
Political Conditions

The fundamentals of electoral change in the 2010 midterm elections are unmistakable. Electoral change depends on two general sets of political conditions: those of the previous election or elections and those of the current election. Both favor the Republicans this year.

Sandy the Rainmaker: The Electoral Impact of a Super Storm

2013 ◽  
Vol 46 (02) ◽  
pp. 313-323 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yamil Velez ◽  
David Martin
Keyword(s):  
North Carolina ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Hurricane Sandy ◽  
Vote Share ◽  
Electoral Vote ◽  
Electoral Outcomes ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Electoral Impact

AbstractThe arrival of Hurricane Sandy within a week of the 2012 presidential election caused unprecedented disruption to the final days of the campaign and Election Day in areas that were affected. The precise impact of the storm on those areas hit hardest was not necessarily clear. Contrary to prior research on the effect of disasters on electoral outcomes, we find that the president's vote share was ultimately increased in storm-affected areas by about four percentage points, plus or minus two points. While those states most heavily affected were unlikely to give their electoral vote to Romney because of other factors, we present counterfactual analyses that show that such a storm could have had a significant impact on swing states: although the storm only affected some areas, we show that Virginia would likely have been won by Romney were it not hit at all, whereas North Carolina would likely have gone for Obama had it been directly in the storm's path.

The Jovian ring

1984 ◽  
Vol 75 ◽  
pp. 203-209
Author(s):  
Joseph A. Burns
Keyword(s):  
Equatorial Plane ◽  
Charged Particles ◽  
Dynamical Evolution ◽  
Main Band ◽  
Small Grains ◽  
Three Components

ABSTRACTLying in Jupiter's equatorial plane is a diaphanous ring having little substructure within its three components (main band, faint disk, and halo). Micron-sized grains account for much of the visible ring, but particles of centimeter sizes and larger must also be present to absorb charged particles. Since dynamical evolution times and survival life times are quite short (≲102-3yr) for small grains, the Jovian ring is being continually replenished; probably most of the visible ring is generated by micrometeoroids colliding into unseen parent bodies that reside in the main band.

Relationships Between Subjective Ratings and Objective Measures of Performance in Speechreading Sentences

1997 ◽  
Vol 40 (4) ◽  
pp. 900-911 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marilyn E. Demorest ◽  
Lynne E. Bernstein
Keyword(s):  
Hearing Impairment ◽  
Performance Evaluations ◽  
Objective Measures ◽  
Large Individual ◽  
Subjective Ratings ◽  
Objective Performance ◽  
Phonetic Distance ◽  
Stimulus Length ◽  
Measures Of Performance ◽  
Confidence Scale

Ninety-six participants with normal hearing and 63 with severe-to-profound hearing impairment viewed 100 CID Sentences (Davis & Silverman, 1970) and 100 B-E Sentences (Bernstein & Eberhardt, 1986b). Objective measures included words correct, phonemes correct, and visual-phonetic distance between the stimulus and response. Subjective ratings were made on a 7-point confidence scale. Magnitude of validity coefficients ranged from .34 to .76 across materials, measures, and groups. Participants with hearing impairment had higher levels of objective performance, higher subjective ratings, and higher validity coefficients, although there were large individual differences. Regression analyses revealed that subjective ratings are predictable from stimulus length, response length, and objective performance. The ability of speechreaders to make valid performance evaluations was interpreted in terms of contemporary word recognition models.

Assessing General Ecological Behavior

2000 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-52 ◽  
Author(s):  
Florian G. Kaiser ◽  
Anders Biel
Keyword(s):  
Internal Consistency ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Questionnaire Data ◽  
Situational Influences ◽  
Behavior Difficulties ◽  
Differential Behavior ◽  
Ecological Behavior ◽  
Political Actions ◽  
Measurement Approach

Summary: The General Ecological Behavior (GEB) scale was developed for cross-cultural applications ( Kaiser & Wilson, in press ). The present study compares ecological behavior in Sweden and Switzerland. Questionnaire data from 247 Swedish and 445 Swiss participants are presented. Reliability and internal consistency analyses revealed that the GEB scale was applicable to both the Swedish and Swiss samples. In general, Swiss behave more ecologically than Swedes. Nevertheless, several ecological behaviors turned out to be easier to conduct in Sweden than in Switzerland and vice versa. The GEB scale takes differential behavior difficulties into account that are most likely caused by situational influences. At the same time, the proposed behavior measurement approach guides the search for potentially useful political actions that make it easier for people to behave ecologically in some societies and, thus, can be adopted by others.

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