Why Vote?

Essential Questions About the Future of Elections in America

Daniel M. Shea

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN:
  9781138617896
• eBook ISBN:
  9780429866722
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Derechos civiles en política

For nearly 200 years, Americans have pinned the democratic character of their system on elections. In many ways, we have become an election-crazed nation, ever-hoping that the next grand contest or the next great candidate will save the day. But tectonic shifts abound – changes that are distorting the nature of the process. From the rise of fear-centered partisanship, new limits on voter access to the polls, the omnipotence of social media, declining standards of objectivity, Russian interference, the reemergence of the partisan press, the growing weight of elites and more, elections – our "grand democratic feasts" – are transforming before our eyes. We've reached a precarious intersection, and it is no stretch to say the future of the republic is at stake.

Written by one of the nation's leading parties and elections scholars, Why Vote? Essential Questions About the Future of Elections in America explores a range of topics. Each chapter is set by a guiding question, and concludes with a novel, often surprising argument. Who or what is to blame for the rise of rabid, hate-centered polarization? Can a third party really save our system? Should we even try to limit money in campaigns? Do elections stifle other, more potent forms of engagement? Who's to blame for the growing number of voter access restrictions? Might attitudes toward immigration and race form a "unified theory" of voter coalitions?

This lively, accessible book is sure to inspire robust discussion and debate. The election process in the United States is coming apart at the seams, and Why Vote? tees up a new way of thinking about the future. This book will be of particular interest to students and scholars of US politics and elections, and to general interest readers.

1

The 2016 Election and Aftermath

Did Donald Trump Break the Mold?

Right from the start, Donald Trump made it clear that his candidacy would be different – very different. His announcement at Trump Tower in New York City drew a great deal of attention not because he was expected to do particularly well in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, but because he seemed a novelty act. Trump was a character and his entry into the race would add a wild turn; the media was attracted to him like moths to a flame.

A few years earlier, in the wake of Mitt Romney’s defeat to Barack Obama, the Republican National Committee produced a post-mortem analysis. Among much else, the report, dubbed the “Growth and Opportunity Project,” said that going forward the Republican Party should be known for its tolerance and respect, and that it should “ensure that the tone of the message is always reflective of these core principles.” This was a not-so-subtle nod to changing demographics of the electorate and the party’s interest in cultivating support among minority groups, particularly Hispanic Americans. Trump’s announcement threw cold water on the goals of tolerance and respect, however. He told his audience and the television cameras, “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best … They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us [sic]. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

As the race progressed, Trump continued to shatter all manner of rules and norms of modern electoral politics. For instance, a widely read book from a decade earlier, The Party Decides, documented the importance of early endorsements in presidential nomination contests. The backing of prominent party leaders and officials during the “invisible primary” was thought to be one of the most important determinants of success. Early money was believed to be critical – which is probably why former Florida Governor Jeb Bush had raised an unprecedented sum by the summer of 2016, a whopping $114 million. But Trump had very few establishment backers and little early money.

Republicans, particularly those who turn out for primaries and caucuses, were thought to be “values voters.” Numerous studies found that while a set of economic and foreign policy matters were important to this group, an array of social and cultural concerns was paramount. As noted in an article in The Atlantic, “[Conservatives] clung to the idea that character counts.”¹ A 2011 poll by the Public Religion Research Institute found that only 30 percent of white evangelicals believed “an elected official who commits an immoral act in their personal life can still behave ethically and fulfill their duties in their public and professional life.” Many Grand Old Party (GOP) voters focused their attention on the candidates’ positions on abortion, in particular. But Trump did not fit this mold. His position on abortion was muddled; he was pro-choice a decade earlier. Many considered themselves faithful Christians, yet Trump was the most secular Republican candidate in generations. In an awkward attempt to reach out to Evangelicals, Trump traveled to Liberty University in January 2016, where he tried to drop a line from the Bible: “I hear this is a major theme right here, but Two Corinthians, that’s the whole ballgame.” (The accurate term is “Second Corinthians.”) Above all, Republican primary voters zeroed in on character. Is the candidate virtuous, a good role model for children? Here again Trump did not fit the mold: he has been divorced twice, was known for a flamboyant, playboy lifestyle, and was unabashed about using all manner of profanity. Following a lackluster debate performance, Trump suggested that the moderator might have been tough on him because she was menstruating, and at a rally he mocked the physical disability of a New York Times reporter.

While perhaps not always policy experts, successful presidential candidates for both parties have always had a basic knowledge of key issues. Being unprepared or even slow to respond to major policy points can be fatal. Nevertheless, Trump’s inability to answer even the simplest policy query was exceptional. Not only did he not seem to understand rudimentary concepts and important parts of history, he seemed unrepentant in his ignorance. His style and approach would be more important than policy nuances. After all, his opponent was the policy geek.

Ronald Reagan, the star of the GOP in the 1980s, had popularized the so-called Eleventh Commandment for the Republican Party: thou shall not speak ill of fellow Republicans. Although robust disagreements on policy were fine, GOP candidates should not attack each other. At the very least, they should refrain from personal assaults that might cause problems in the general election. Trump quickly cast that rule aside, too. A small selection of insults he directed at fellow Republicans includes the following: regarding Carly Fiorina, former Chief Executive of Hewlett-Packard, he said, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!” He said of former President George W. Bush, “Say what you want, the World Trade Center came down during his time.” On Senator John McCain of Arizona, Trump commented, “He’s not a war hero. He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured,” and regarding physician Ben Carson, “You don’t cure these people. You don’t cure a child molester … Pathological, there’s no cure for that.” Trump also used pejorative nicknames for his opponents, dubbing Texas Senator Ted Cruz “Lyin’ Ted” and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush “Low Energy Jeb.”

To be fair, insults were lobbed in the other direction as well. Texas Governor Rick Perry said Trump was “unfit to be president … [he is] a barking carnival act, a cancer on conservatism.” Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal suggested Trump was “dangerous, a narcissist and an egomaniac,” and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul called him a “delusional narcissist and an orange-faced windbag.” He added for good measure, “A speck of dirt is way more qualified to be president.” South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham is quoted as saying, “You know how you make America great again? Tell Donald Trump to go to hell.” And former Florida Governor Jeb Bush commented, “He’s a bully. Punch him back in the nose.”

Trump campaigned like a bull in a china shop stung by a swarm of hornets. He raised and spent money in unconventional ways, broke all the rules about overexposure on radio and television, and blundered from one fatal gaffe to another. He spent less money than most of the top-tier candidates, rarely used polling, flip-flopped on one issue after the next, salted his speeches with vulgarities and recurrent grammatical mistakes, and lobbed offences at women, Hispanics, Muslims, Iowans, and many other groups of voters. He even insulted the looks of his opponents’ wives!

It is difficult to recount all of the exceptional elements of Donald Trump’s drive for the Republican nomination in one volume, let alone a few pages. Flatly stated, in the history of American elections, no candidate has decimated as many norms and codes of conduct as Donald Trump. Scholar Frank Mackaman, a lifelong student of American politics, called the GOP nomination “virtually unprecedented” and “you would have to go back to the Bull Moose (Progressive) Party, Teddy Roosevelt’s splinter from the Republican Party in the early 20th century, to get something that resembles [the race].”²

On the Democratic side, most assumed Hillary Clinton was the heir apparent. She had narrowly lost to Barack Obama in 2008 and then served five years as his Secretary of State. After leaving that post, she had assembled a state-of-the-art campaign operation and raised a ton of money. It was her time and she was ready. Yes, there might be some nipping at the edges from insurgent candidates, probably from the far left, but it was Clinton’s nomination for the taking – or so it was thought.

To most party leaders, scholars and pundits, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders’ candidacy represented a typical protest from the progressive wing of the party. After all, he was not even a Democrat, but rather a Democratic-Socialist, and he came from the most liberal state in the union. Like Trump, few prominent leaders or officials had endorsed Sanders and his coffers in the early stages were shallow. Like an irritating bug at a summer picnic, Sanders would be brushed away as the nomination season unfolded.

That did not happen. In Iowa, the first of the nomination contests, Sanders stunned the establishment by battling Clinton to a draw. He then swamped Clinton in New Hampshire, which was not a surprise because Vermont is next door, but on the night of the victory he made a plea to the public: “I’m going to hold a fundraiser right here, right now, across America.” Sanders urged anyone who would listen to visit his website and make a donation, “whether it’s ten bucks, or 20 bucks, or 50 bucks.” Money poured in and by the end of the next day the campaign had collected a staggering $8 million.³

In the next contest, Nevada, Sanders narrowly lost (47% to 52%) and on Super Tuesday, a few weeks later, Clinton won the lion’s share of contests (and delegates), but Sanders beat her in several states. Perhaps even more significantly, his crowds were massive and his war chest was bursting at the seams – nearly all of it coming from small contributions (a sign of popular support). By early March, Sanders had gathered over four million contributions, with an average donation of $27. He had become a force, a threat to Clinton’s nomination, and would not be brushed away easily.

When all was said and done, Sanders netted about 44 percent of primary and caucus votes, with 23 wins to Clinton’s 34 victories (the US territories and DC have nomination contests). He raised a whopping $228 million. Sanders endorsed Clinton at the Democratic National Convention in late July, but to many his backing seemed rather tacit, more of a call to defeat Trump at any cost than a full-throttled validation of his former rival.

To say that the general election was also unconventional would be one of the grand understatements of our day. Trump drew large and energetic crowds, but continued to push a novel policy agenda; elements of his platform were plucked from the playbook of die-hard conservatives, but other components were snatched from the populist wing of the Democratic Party. In one breath, for instance, he pledged to rid the nation of both the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Most expected Trump to moderate his hard-line positions that seemed to propel him through the nomination process, like his insistence on building a wall along the Mexican border and banning the entrance of Muslims into the nation, but he never tacked to the middle. His early debate performances were weak, rife with flubs and generalities, but his rallies were massive and supporters exuberant. Their candidate would surely “make America great again.”

In the middle of the general election campaign, on October 7, the Washington Post released an audio recording of a conversation between Trump and Access Hollywood reporter Billy Bush. Perhaps unaware the microphone was on (it’s not clear), Trump said he might start kissing the woman they were about to meet. “I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything … grab them by the pussy.” It was a bombshell, what many, including the author of this book, deemed the unequivocal end to Trump’s candidacy. No candidate could come back from such a blow. Trump apologized, claiming it to be mere “locker room talk,” and quickly turned attention toward his Democratic opponent and her husband: “Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course,” Trump argued. He pushed forward, seemingly unfazed. His poll numbers dropped a bit, but huge crowds continued to show up at his rallies. The race moved on.

It was also the most expensive general election race in history. The Clinton campaign had raised a staggering $1.4 billion and the Trump campaign had pulled in $958 million.⁴ Spending by outside groups (units not officially affiliated with the candidates) also grew to historic levels. Whereas these groups spent about $900 million in 2012, in the Clinton–Trump contest it mushroomed to $1.4 billion.

True to form, Clinton was perfectly polished and prepared at the debates, but on the campaign trail she seemed to go through the motions. And why not – there was no way the American electorate would send Donald Trump to the White House. A vast preponderance of the polling confirmed that she was way ahead. From Labor Day on, not a single mainstream poll suggested Trump would win. A “poll of polls” conducted by USA Today had Clinton up by four points on the weekend prior to the election. It was tighter than most had expected, but Clinton’s win seemed certain.

Neither candidate was well-liked; both had historically higher unfavorable ratings than favorable ones. Gallup reported that by the end of the race, Trump had a 62 percent unfavorable rating (35 percent favorable), while Clinton was not much better, with a 57 percent unfavorable rating (40 percent favorable).⁵

On election night, signs that Clinton was in trouble came early. Exit polling from several East Coast states suggested a tighter-than-expected race, and the actual returns from Florida and Pennsylvania – thought to be good states for Clinton – pointed to problems. There were hopes that she might even snatch North Carolina, but that evaporated quickly, and even Virginia was neck-and-neck. Soon Pennsylvania and Florida were put on Trump’s tally sheet, and with most of the western states a foregone conclusion, all eyes turned to the Midwest – particularly Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. This was believed to be Clinton’s firewall. Ohio was tough, but Michigan and Wisconsin should have been fine (she made very few trips to either, assuming they were in the bag). As the evening wore on and the results trickled in, the outcome crystallized. To the astonishment of pollsters, pundits, politicians and perhaps the candidate himself, Trump swept the entire Midwest. With these states in his pocket, ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• 1 The 2016 Election and Aftermath: Did Donald Trump Break the Mold?
• 2 Voting and Elections in Theory: Do We Consent to a System that Limits Our Say in Government?
• 3 Give Us the Ballot: Why Has the Right to Vote Been So Contentious?
• 4 Turning Out to Vote … Or Not: Is the Youth Apathy Rap Justified?
• 5 Partisanship, 21st-Century Style: Can We Break from the Shelter of Our Tribe?
• 6 Realignment Redux: Is there a “Unifying Theory” for Today’s Electoral Alignment?
• 7 The Nomination Process: Are Party Nomination Contests Too Democratic?
• 8 Minor Parties in the United States: Can a Third Party Save Our Democracy?
• 9 Campaign Finance: Is Too Much Money Really the Problem?
• 10 New Media and Russian Interference: Are Objective Assessments Possible in the 21st Century?
• Conclusion: Are There Pathways for Renewal?
• Index