Courting Coverage: Rhetorical Newsworthiness Cues and Candidate-Media Agenda Convergence in Presidential Primaries

What can political candidates do to make their agenda more enticing to journalists? This study argues that the answer lies in appealing to newsworthiness values—specifically conflict, human interest, and simplicity—via rhetorical newsworthiness cues. Using an original data set of announcement speeches and national news media coverage from 1984 to 2016, this study tests this argument and finds that candidates whose speeches include more anger and candidate-based appeals, which appeal to journalists’ preference for conflict and human-interest stories, have their issue agenda covered with greater proportionality. It concludes with a discussion of the implications of these incentives on the electorate.

Brazil presidential hopefuls gear up for 2022 election

Significance In recent weeks, former Justice Minister Sergio Moro has joined a centre-right party, Sao Paulo Governor Joao Doria has won his party’s presidential primaries and former President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, widely seen as Bolsonaro’s main competitor, has completed a successful European tour. Bolsonaro has joined a new party ahead of the election. Impacts Bolsonaro will keep pushing for congressional approval of his pre-election spending measures to improve his prospects. The incumbent will increase his attacks on Lula and 'third-way' candidates, emulating the 2018 presidential campaign. Lula will seize any opportunity to consolidate himself as the focus of opposition to Bolsonaro for both the left and centre.

Lessons from the Use of Ranked Choice Voting in American Presidential Primaries

Grounded in experience in 2020, both major political parties have reasons to expand use of ranked choice voting (RCV) in their 2024 presidential primaries. RCV may offer a ‘win-win’ solution benefiting both the parties and their voters. RCV would build on both the pre-1968 American tradition of parties determining a coalitional presidential nominee through multiple ballots at party conventions and the modern practice of allowing voters to effectively choose their nominees in primaries. Increasingly used by parties around the world in picking their leaders, RCV may allow voters to crowd-source a coalitional nominee. Most published research about RCV focuses on state and local elections. In contrast, this article analyzes the impact on voters, candidates, and parties from five state Democratic parties using RCV in party-run presidential nomination contests in 2020. First, it uses polls and results to examine how more widespread use of RCV might have affected the trajectory of contests for the 2016 Republican nomination. Second, it contrasts how more than three million voters in the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries backed withdrawn candidates with the low rate of such wasted votes for withdrawn candidates in the states with RCV ballots. Finally, it concludes with an examination of how RCV might best interact with the parties’ current rules and potential changes to those rules.