Inversions in US Presidential Elections: 1836–2016

Inversions—in which the popular vote winner loses the election— have occurred in four US presidential races. We show that rather than being statistical flukes, inversions have been ex ante likely since the early 1800s. In elections yielding a popular vote margin within 1 point (one-eighth of presidential elections), about 40 percent will be inversions in expectation. We show this conditional probability is remarkably stable across historical periods—despite differences in which groups voted, which states existed, and which parties participated. Our findings imply that the United States has experienced so few inversions merely because there have been so few elections (and fewer close elections). (JEL D72, N41, N42)

Direct Democracy at the Local Level

Municipalities of Liechtenstein enjoy a considerable degree of autonomy. There are matters which, according to the Municipality Act, must be decided by the entirety of the municipality's citizens who are entitled to vote. Furthermore, a referendum can be held against decisions of the municipal council by collecting signatures, or a popular vote on certain issues can be triggered through a citizens' initiative. In such ballots, citizens who are entitled to vote and reside in the municipality are admitted. In case of votes on the naturalisation of foreign nationals, only those who are resident in and have citizenship of the municipality in question are entitled to vote. Votes on naturalisation are more frequent than votes on matters of substance. Initiatives at municipal level, on the other hand, are rare. Municipal citizens can also exert direct influence at national level. Direct democratic instruments at national level can be taken by a nationwide collection of signatures or three or four identical municipal resolutions.

CATHOLICS AND THE 2020 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

This article examines the role of Catholics within the 2020 presidential election in the United States. Although Catholics were once a crucial and dependable component of the Democratic Party’s electoral coalition, their vote in more recent years has been much more splintered. Nevertheless, Catholics have been deemed to be an important “swing vote” in American politics today, as in recent presidential elections they have aligned with the national popular vote. This article therefore focuses on the part that Catholics played within the 2020 presidential election process. It addresses the level of political change and continuity within the ranks of Catholics over the past several elections, how they voted in the Democratic primaries during the initial stages of the 2020 presidential election, their level of support for different candidates over the course of the campaign, how they ultimately came to cast their ballots in the 2020 election, and the extent to which their voting patterns in 2020 differed from that of 2016.

Two U.S. elections: 1960 and 2000. A comparison of character

<p>The United States presidential election in 2000 was one of the closest in history. In 1960, the winner of the popular vote in that presidential election won by the narrowest of margins. Forty years separated the two results, and both involved a sitting Vice President losing to a relative newcomer. This study sets out the backgrounds of each of the four presidential candidates who competed in 1960 and 2000 and aims to understand the character of each by examining the influences on their lives and the development of their defining character traits. The second aim is to understand the authentic nature of their character by applying several theoretical frameworks to each of them. The application of these theoretical models is done in the context of the outcomes of the 1960 and 2000 elections and, in particular, the losing candidates’ reactions to those results. It is at this most crucial moment that decision-making best reflects whether the candidate’s reaction is authentic in the context of his character development.</p>

Two U.S. elections: 1960 and 2000. A comparison of character

<p>The United States presidential election in 2000 was one of the closest in history. In 1960, the winner of the popular vote in that presidential election won by the narrowest of margins. Forty years separated the two results, and both involved a sitting Vice President losing to a relative newcomer. This study sets out the backgrounds of each of the four presidential candidates who competed in 1960 and 2000 and aims to understand the character of each by examining the influences on their lives and the development of their defining character traits. The second aim is to understand the authentic nature of their character by applying several theoretical frameworks to each of them. The application of these theoretical models is done in the context of the outcomes of the 1960 and 2000 elections and, in particular, the losing candidates’ reactions to those results. It is at this most crucial moment that decision-making best reflects whether the candidate’s reaction is authentic in the context of his character development.</p>

The Effect of Electoral Inversions on Democratic Legitimacy: Evidence from the United States

When a party or candidate loses the popular vote but still wins the election, do voters view the winner as legitimate? This scenario, known as an electoral inversion, describes the winners of two of the last six presidential elections in the United States. We report results from two experiments testing the effect of inversions on democratic legitimacy in the US context. Our results indicate that inversions significantly decrease the perceived legitimacy of winning candidates. Strikingly, this effect does not vary with the margin by which the winner loses the popular vote, nor by whether the candidate benefiting from the inversion is a co-partisan. The effect is driven by Democrats, who punish inversions regardless of candidate partisanship; few effects are observed among Republicans. These results suggest that the experience of inversions increases sensitivity to such outcomes among supporters of the losing party.

Using Facebook data to predict the 2016 U.S. presidential election

We use 19 billion likes on the posts of top 2000 U.S. fan pages on Facebook from 2015 to 2016 to measure the dynamic ideological positions for politicians, news outlets, and users at the national and state levels. We then use these measures to derive support rates for 2016 presidential candidates in all 50 states, to predict the election, and to compare them with state-level polls and actual vote shares. We find that: (1) Assuming that users vote for candidates closer to their own ideological positions, support rates calculated using Facebook predict that Trump will win the electoral college vote while Clinton will win the popular vote. (2) State-level Facebook support rates track state-level polling averages and pass the cointegration test, showing two time series share similar trends. (3) Compared with actual vote shares, polls generally have smaller margin of errors, but polls also often overestimate Clinton’s support in right-leaning states. Overall, we provide a method to forecast elections at low cost, in real time, and based on passively revealed preference and little researcher discretion.

The Legacy of Rush Limbaugh Will Always Be Tied to Donald Trump

This article explores Rush Limbaugh’s efforts to tribalize American politics through his racially divisive, falsehood-ridden portrayal of President Obama. By playing and preying on white anxiety, the host laid the groundwork for the election of a president who essentially adopted his view of the Obama presidency. Limbaugh’s rhetoric about Obama serves as a case study whereby the most influential part of the conservative media during those years represents the whole. “How did we get here?” is the essential question right now in American politics. How did we go from a society that relatively easily elected Barack Obama twice to one that, popular vote loss aside, elected Donald Trump, and came within a small popular vote shift in three states from doing so again in 2020? Analyzing how Limbaugh ginned up white racial anxiety about a Black president helps us understand the rise of Trump, who began his White House campaign by serving as the nation’s birther-in-chief and who, in his reaction to the white nationalist terrorist attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, to name just one example, demonstrated his reliance on white identity politics. As Jamelle Bouie wrote: “You can draw a direct line to the rise of Trump from the racial hysteria of talk radio—where Rush Limbaugh, a Trump booster, warned that Obama would turn the world upside down.”

CONSTITUTIONAL AND LEGAL FOUNDATIONS OF RUSSIAN FEDERALISM

Данная работа посвящена базовым теоретическим конституционно-правовым вопросам отечественного федерализма. На основе анализа морфологического происхождения терминов «федерализм» и «федерация» устанавливается их взаимосвязь и роль в отечественной правовой науке. Авторами раскрывается содержание основ построения отечественного федерализма – его принципов, а также производится попытка классифицировать их, разделив на две группы. Кроме того, в работе исследуется роль Конституции РФ, принятой всенародным голосованием 12 декабря 1993 года, в становлении и развитии федерализма в России. На основе анализа положений Конституции РФ, закрепляющих основы (принципы) отечественного федерализма, выявлен комплекс проблем в конституционно-правовом регулировании взаимоотношений Российской Федерации и входящих в нее субъектов. This article is devoted to the basic theoretical constitutional and legal issues of domestic federalism. Based on the analysis of the morphological origin of the terms «federalism» and «federation», their relationship and role in domestic legal science is established. The author reveals the content of the foundations of building domestic federalism – its principles, as well as an attempt to classify them, dividing them into two groups. The paper also examines the role of the Constitution, adopted by popular vote on December 12, 1993, in the formation and development of federalism in Russia. Based on the analysis of the constitutional provisions that consolidate the foundations (principles) of domestic federalism, the author identified a complex of problems in the constitutional and legal regulation of the relationship between the Russian Federation and its constituent entities.