The Timeline of Presidential Elections

How Campaigns Do (and Do Not) Matter

Robert S. Erikson, Christopher Wlezien

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780226922157, 9780226922140
• eBook ISBN: 9780226922164
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: American Government
• Index: Politics & International Relations

In presidential elections, do voters cast their ballots for the candidates whose platform and positions best match their own? Or is the race for president of the United States come down largely to who runs the most effective campaign? It's a question those who study elections have been considering for years with no clear resolution. In The Timeline of Presidential Elections, Robert S. Erikson and Christopher Wlezien reveal for the first time how both factors come into play.

 

Erikson and Wlezien have amassed data from close to two thousand national polls covering every presidential election from 1952 to 2008, allowing them to see how outcomes take shape over the course of an election year. Polls from the beginning of the year, they show, have virtually no predictive power. By mid-April, when the candidates have been identified and matched in pollsters' trial heats, preferences have come into focus—and predicted the winner in eleven of the fifteen elections. But a similar process of forming favorites takes place in the last six months, during which voters' intentions change only gradually, with particular events—including presidential debates—rarely resulting in dramatic change.

 

Ultimately, Erikson and Wlezien show that it is through campaigns that voters are made aware of—or not made aware of—fundamental factors like candidates' policy positions that determine which ticket will get their votes. In other words, fundamentals matter, but only because of campaigns. Timely and compelling, this book will force us to rethink our assumptions about presidential elections.

INDEX

advertising, 10, 12

African American voters, 142, 153, 154, 156, 192n9

age of voter, 153, 155, 156

Alvarez, R. Michael, 149

American National Election Studies (ANES): economy and, 192n10; pre- and post-election interviews, 139, 143–44, 145, 146, 154–57, 192n3; turnover in successive elections and, 140–42; variance compression and, 157, 160

April polls (ED-200), 2, 4, 61–63, 165

autoregressive (AR1) process, 46–49, 60, 63. See also random walk (integrated series); stationary time series

Bartels, Larry, 41

beginning of election year, 1, 4, 166

bounces, 44–46, 166; conventions and, 76–77, 107, 188n23; intensification effect and, 55; of stationary time series, 47, 49, 50, 52. See also late campaign effects; shocks

broadcast networks, 17, 166

Budge, Ian, 129, 167, 190n21

bumps, 44–46, 166; conventions and, 76–77, 107, 166; of stationary time series, 47, 50, 52. See also shocks

Business Retrospections, 112, 116, 117–18

campaign effects, 1–2; downward trend over the years, 144; events perspective on, 11–13 (see also convention season; debates); fundamentals and, 2, 5–7, 13, 15, 41–42, 57, 177–78; models of, 13–14, 41–42; overestimated by observers, 176–77; partisan predispositions and, 55–57, 148–49; predicting specific elections and, 169; seeming contradictions of, 165; time-series properties and, 49, 50, 51–52; voter decision-making and, 10–11; voters’ relative utilities and, 53–55, 56. See also enlightenment (learning); fundamentals; late campaign effects; persuasion; priming; shocks

Campbell, James, 7

candidate attractiveness, partisan effects and, 57, 160. See also presidential approval; relative utility (relative liking)

candidate competence, 2; persuasion about, 10

candidate positions, 7. See also platform ideology

Catholic voters, 154, 156, 192n9

change in voter preferences, 15. See also campaign effects; volatility of voter preferences

Comparative Manifesto Project, 128

conservatism. See platform ideology; policy mood

convention season, 4, 12, 72–79, 102–7; bump associated with, 76–77, 107, 166; changes in scheduling of, 37, 60–61, 72; decline in poll variance over, 37–38; difference between Election Day vote and polls of, 90; economic factors independent of, 115; fundamentals and, 8, 167; learning in, 107, 131–32, 188n21; political model and, 130, 131–32; predicting the Election Day vote and, 97, 99, 100, 101–7, 188n19; volati...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Copyright
• Title Page
• Series Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• One: Election Campaigns and Voter Preferences
• Two: Uncovering Vote Intentions using Trial-Heat Polls
• Three: Thinking about Campaign Dynamics
• Four: Vote Intentions over the Campaign Timeline
• Five: From the Campaign to Election Day
• Six: Sources of Change over the Campaign Timeline
• Seven: Campaign Dynamics and the Individual Voter
• Eight: The Evolution of Electoral Choice over the Campaign Timeline
• Appendix: Vote Intention Data
• Notes
• References
• Index