·      435 seats as of 1911

·      every 2 years

·      one person-one vote

·      Redistricting causes incumbents to retire or face other incumbents in elections sometimes

·      435 seats, seats added/taken away with changes in population

·      gerrymandering is a result of equal district populations, bizarre shapes to guarantee partisan representatives

·      in 2000, states that gained seats were more republican

·      No racial gerrymandering

·      Republican voters are distributed more efficiently across House distracts than are Democratic voters (due to gerrymandering)

·      Trend towards more uniform election laws

·      Australian ballot vs. party ballots (public acknowledgement of party affiliation)

·      Party column ballot (all party nominations listed together) vs. office bloc (individual offices listed)

·      Originally—made elections significant and not festivals

·      Decline of parties due to primary elections (weakened the power of party bosses); still able to direct the flow of campaign money to favored candidates

·      Don’t control access to the ballot and therefore to political office

·      Geography-very large districts compared with very small districts

·      Population-senators in California versus Rhode Island

·      Economic Base-computer companies in the Silicon Valley vs. Michigan’s automaker employees vs. Wyoming’s energy and mining sectors

·      Income-Kentucky has 2^nd poorest district (Rep) and California has wealthiest (Dem)

·      Communications: Nashville has its own media market vs. New Jersey which relies on the media market of NY

·      Ethnicity- majority Hispanic or African American

·      Age-Florida has very old districts vs. Madison, Wisconsin home of UW

·      Political habits-loyalty to a party or competition

·      90% of races include incumbents and in 90% of those races, incumbents won

·      vanishing marginals-fewer close elections (60% for winner)

·      Winning by a large margin did not guarantee a win in the next election

·      Go on subcommittees that suit local interests

·      Pork barrel/Christmas tree legislation

·      Parties leave representatives alone, vote district not party first,

·      Salary, travel, office, staff, and communication allowances worth $1 million per year for congressmen

·      Franking privilege

·      Substituting incumbency for party when voting? Change in voting behavior?

·      Ability to deliver services with expanding government, party becomes irrelevant 

·      Want to influence people’s perceptions of their hold on the district—self-fulfilling prophecy

·      Likelihood of success

·      Direct, scare-off, and quality effects

·      Incumbency advantage depends on what potential opponents do

·      If a candidate looks promising, they will receive more donations

·      If an incumbent looks too promising, they won’t receive as many donations

·      Challengers need to spend at least $300,000 to have a decent shot at winning (over $500k and 1/3 won) in highly partisan elections

·      $600k is the best threshold

·      For incumbents, spending more money shows weakness

·      Incumbents most effective electoral strategy is to discourage serious opposition

·      Expansionist phase-build up base

·      Protectionist phase-work to maintain support

·      Unaware of weakness until tested during protectionist phase

·      Naïveté

·      Now or never

·      Just to win the nomination

·      Ideological basis

·      Show that the party is alive

·      Federal Election Campaign Act-requires full disclosure of the sources of campaign contributions and also restricts the amount of money that parties, groups, and individuals may give to congressional candidates (invited parties and PACs to flourish)

·      Soft money-money from the party and PACs

·      Hard money-money raised and spent under FECA’s limitations

·      Party contributions diminishing ($5,000 per candidate per election)

·      Allowed to spend money on behalf of candidates ($39,600)—PACs follow party cues

·      Republicans raise much more money

·      “Leadership PACs”—money from one campaign to another

·      Self-financing: no limit, however does not guarantee victory (5 of top 20 financiers won); provision that allows candidates to raise limits against self-financed opponents

·      Independent contributions have become significant only recently

·      Invest in “voter education” and “issue advocacy” without directly campaigning for candidates

·      Campaign team—buy professionals/attract attention from PACs

·      Assemble a team of close political friends

·      “Campaigns are supposed to find and expand the pool of eligible voters favoring the candidate and make sure that they vote”

·      Challengers can campaign in unique ways like on a helicopter or bicycling

·      Mass media uses 45% of campaign budgets; some tv, radio, internet, email

·      Personal campaigning is difficult to meet a large percentage of voters

·      Must have a consistent campaign theme, what is the election about

·      Challenger’s campaigns must undermine support for the incumbent (travel, scandal, voting record, out of touch, divided loyalties, partisan attacks)

·      Negative advertising works; sometimes the party does the dirty work for the candidate

·      Incumbents try to maintain relationship with constituents that will allow them to survive a damaging vote or contrary political tide; home style (inspire trust, accessibility, now spending preemptively, relative to President’s popularity)

·      Open seats affected by partisan trends, votes along party lines

·      Less consistent for incumbents due to longer terms/more competitive nature

·      Challengers can use campaign resources more effectively (TV ads)

·      Less personal race

·      Not as attuned to their constituents

·      Too much campaigning can turn off voters

·      Republicans try to dampen turnout in minority areas because Democrats tend to win minorities

·      Turnout is much greater in years of Presidential elections

·      Turnout has decreased since the 1960s

·      Affected by education (more years, more likely), income, occupational status

·      Higher in the north than south

·      Most important influence on voting decisions

·      Gained through powerful personal experience or learned from the family

·      Increase in partisan defectors

·      Won’t vote for candidates they know nothing about

·      Incumbent advantage in name recognition, even if people can’t recall their name

·      Much more likely to have contact with incumbents in the house (no difference in the senate-except in the largest states)

·      Senate uses TV much more frequently

·      Without scandal, incumbents can control information that reaches the public and control their own press

·      Spending more money=increased likelihood of contact=increased likelihood of recognition=increased likelihood someone will vote for candidate (challenger)

·      Familiarity and evaluations related to the vote

·      Part of the incumbency advantage is due to people being more familiar with the incumbent candidate

·      Favorable images most house members acquire through experience and the relatively negative images (if any) projected by their opponents

·      Little difference in patterns for senate and house elections; vulnerability of Senate derives from context of elections

·      Liked because of issues pertaining to job performance, experience, distric/individual services, personal characteristics (come from information that is attributed to personal characteristics)

·      Disliked for party, ideology, and policy

·      Discouraging opposition before the campaign begins is effective

·      Policy and ideology play a larger role

·      Differences in candidacies, not differences in patterns of voting behavior are what distinguish house from senate elections

·      Voting behavior is constrained by the electoral context created by strategic decisions

·      Issues can have direct as well as indirect effects through evaluations of the president and the incumbent on individual voting decisions

·      Power

·      Personal benefits

·      To change status quo

·      Stepping stone

·      Retain status quo

·      Preserve values

·      Advance Political Priorities/Policies

·      Money/Future Money

·      Stop opponent (Pat Buchanan)

·      To help/expand the party

·      Scrutiny

·      Lack of privacy

·      Losing isn’t fun

·      Debt

·      Protect family

·      No instant gratification

·      Becoming a target

·      If you can’t win

started doing polling scientifically; random, representative sample (right number of women, minorities, poor, cities/urban); predicted correctly the 36 election and every other except the debocle of ‘48

Choose 1,500 people randomly (or 500) and it generates very accurate results; can do a reasonable poll out of 50 people (with a lot of error)

Gave rise to polling industry; the US is extremely “poll-happy”; reflect what’s going on in society

-In person

-Phone

-Call-in 

-Write-in (e-mail)

-Tracking: 300 samples every night for 3 nights and kick out 4th night

-Exit: leaving the booth 9

-Panel-dating: same person over time

-Push-poll: to inform

·      Always remember polls have error!

·      More caution should be given as you move down the ladder (still need 1,500 people)

·      Difference between registered and likely voters (how often they vote in elections—usually Republicans)

·      Be skeptical of One Night Polls-can’t do enough call backs

·      A lot of error to tracking polls; broad trends with a lot of variation

·      Don’t’ worry about large sample size

·      TRY TO TAKE AN AVERAGE OF A BUNCH OF POLLS

Closed primaries: only party members can vote

Semi-closed primaries: allows independents and party members to participate

Open Primaries: anybody can participate

Raiding: when people of the opposite party go in and vote for the weakest candidate; almost nobody does it. You have to be very savvy/strategic to do it

            Incumbent                   Challenger

Good         Clarifying                      Insurgent

Bad              Insurgent                    Clarifying

INCUMBENT = ECONOMY (GNP) + POPULARITY OF THE PRESIDENT

·      Challengers will be more negative than incumbents

    o   Incumbents have had time in office to stress accomplishments and tout that (more positive)

    o   Incumbents have loyalty, challengers must be able to weaken incumbent in order to break down loyalty

    o   Incumbents have more name recognition

    o   Incumbents have a more difficult time finding negative things about challengers

    o   Incumbents are responsible for what is going on, therefore more difficult to attack it

    o   Incumbents don’t want to spend more money because they don’t want to spend a lot and show weakness

·      Challengers will attack more on issues than incumbents to lesson incumbency advantage; in particular on the attack

·      Incumbents will talk about case work, experience, voting record, vague, influence has increased in Washington

    o   Experience

    o   District benefits

    o   General issues of familiarity (not risky); challenger is a gamble

·      65% of challengers are negative on website; 31% of incumbents are negative on website (double for challengers)

·      Issue negativity-63% for challengers; 23% for incumbents (more for personality, trust/safety/no record)

·      References to holding higher office, 65% of challengers, 85% of incumbents

·      69% incumbents in regards to familiarity, 55% for incumbents

·      Money

·      Staff

  o   Assemble a “brain trust” of advisors

    §  Analyze the politics, organization, fundraising, the opponent

    §  Organize the entire campaign and vulnerabilities

    §  Need people that will make them uncomfortable: someone mentioned Clinton’s reputation as a womanizer; don’t miss an opportunity to speak truth to a candidate; exercise objectivity and integrity

·      Volunteers

·      Vision

  o   Belief in your gut that you want to serve; trust staff and don’t try to control every detail

-Deciding to Run

-Testing the Waters

-Developing a winning campaign plan

-Quickly build an effective organization

-Fulfill key staffing needs

-Know what you stand for

-Know your opponent

-Launch campaign

-Avoid potholes

-rationale for candidacy

-tell a story

-be brief (small sound bites)

-emotion

-relevent

-repeat clearly and consistently

-message discipline

-be prepared