For my American Government Students. This presentation has relevance for several chapters you have been assigned to study. Enjoy!

1. Chapter 7: Political Parties,
Participation, and
Elections
From We the People (10th Essentials Edition)
Presented by David Firester

2. Terms with Which to be Familiar
• Incumbent: the person holding office. “Over 20 percent of House
races are uncontested” (p. 202).
• Nomination: the process by which political parties select their
candidates for election to public office. The Democratic Party started
with about 5 candidates and the Republican Party started with about 17
in the 2016 presidential race.
• Electoral Realignment: the point in history when a new party
supplants the ruling party, becoming in turn the dominant political force.

3. Terms with Which to be Familiar
(Continued)
• Divided Government: the presidency is controlled by one party, while
the other party controls one or both houses of Congress. (The opposite
condition, where one or both houses is controlled by a party that doesn’t
control the presidency is known as “unified government.”)
• Suffrage: the right to vote.
• Turnout: the percentage of eligible individuals who actually vote in
America.

4. Political Parties
• Mission: to control the government
• Not legally required.
• Not found in the Constitution
• President Washington warned against partisan politics (1796)
• We have ended up with a two-party system, even though the names of
the parties have changed over time
• “5 Electoral Realignments have occurred since the Founding.” (p.211)

5. Third Party Individuals, Groups & Movements
Individuals:
• Ross Perot (Reform Party in 1992 and as an independent in 1996) got
20% of the vote in 1992. This hurt Republican George H.W. Bush.
• Ralph Nader (Green Party) won 3% of the popular vote in 2000. This
hurt Democrat Al Gore.

6. Third Parties (continued)
Groups:
• The Republican Party was originally a Third Party, but has now become
one of the main Two Parties.
• The Democratic Party became more liberal during the New Deal era, by
adopting most of the “Progressive program early in the 20th century”
and satisfying many Socialists’ programs (213).

7. Third Parties (continued)
Movements:
The Tea Party- 2010: has had some impact on the elections within the
Republican Party, but they have not broken away to become a separate
entity.

8. What about Non-Party Influence?
Interest Groups: Although parties seek to control the government, interest
groups seek to influence government policies.
Political Action Committees (PACs): raise money for candidates, while also
appealing to the public via the media. They are organizations established by
corporations, labor unions, or interest groups.
Technology: the use and maintenance of databases have played a key role in
the last couple of election cycles. Apparently, Wikileaks and hacking have
played some role in the most recent election (2016). Some lingering elements
related to this matter are still under investigation (e.g., the extent to which Russia
may have wielded influence).

9. What Else Influences Elections?
Party Identification:
• Psychological (rigid attachment)
• Emotional (instincts drive)
• Rational (interests align)

10. What Else Influences Elections?
(continued)
The Media, which seem to focus more on “personalities of the individual
candidates rather than the ‘institution’ of the party.” (222)
• The media don’t necessarily have to pervert a candidate’s appearance.
• One’s opponent (official campaign, or non-campaign sympathizers) can
make sure that their advertising dollars are allocated so as to maximize a
negative depiction of their adversary.

11. Therefore, the following errors can have a
devastating impact on one’s campaign:
• An unfortunate utterance, or single slip of the tongue (Republican Mitt
Romney’s 47% comment)
• A series of audible sighs during a debate (Democrat Al Gore)
• Persistently looking at one’s watch (Republican George W. Bush)
• A facial expression (Republican Richard Nixon’s apparent demeanor)
• An off-key yell (Democrat Howard Dean’s “Dean Scream”)

12. • An awkward physical approach (Republican Rick Lazio to Democrat
Hillary Clinton/Democrat Al Gore to Republican George W. Bush)
• A quick film clip (Democrat Michael Dukakis riding in a tank)
• A single, not-so-well-calculated phrase (Democrat John Kerry “I voted
for the 84 billion dollars before I voted against it”)
• Uttering a line that gets outdone by one’s opponent (Republican Dan
Quayle and Democrat Lloyd Bentsen)

13. $$$ Money $$$
Spending Allowance Breakdown:
• Individual spending cap
• $2,600/candidate/election
• $5,000/PAC/Calendar year
• $32,400/national party committee/calendar year
• $10,000 to state and local committees/calendar year
• No limit on # of candidates to whom one can give

14. $$$ Money $$$ (cont’d)
• Group Spending Caps
• 527 Groups- Established for political advocacy; no limit on contributions; must disclose
its funding sources and what it does with its money; can’t coordinate with candidates
• 501(c)(4)- Nonprofit established for political advocacy for “public interests”;
contributions limited: may not spend more than half its revenues for political purposes;
not required to disclose its funding sources, or what it does with its money; can’t coordinate
with candidates
• Super PAC (Independent Expenditure Committee)- Advertising money is unlimited, but
can’t coordinate with candidates (Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission)

15. $$$ Money $$$ (cont’d)
• Self-Funding
• No limit (Buckley v. Valeo, 1976)- for any political race
• E.g., former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, President Donald J. Trump
• Presidential candidates are limited to $50,000 if they accept federal funds

16. $$$ Money $$$ (continued)
• Public Funding Rules (Federal Election Campaign Act)
• Requirements the candidate must meet:
• Having raised $5,000 (minimum) in individual contributions of $250 or less in 20 states
• Federal funding will match dollar-for-dollar all of those contributions
• Maximum total expenditure for primaries = $54 million
• Candidates may receive +/- $91 million prior to the general election (covering all general
expenses)
• Third-party candidates need to have received 5% of the vote in the previous presidential race
to qualify (Note: this didn’t happen for any third party in the 2016 presidential election).

17. Election Voting Laws
• States decide
• 2 steps:
• (1) Register (within a given time frame – 25 days in NYS)
• (2) Vote
• Sample Ballots should be available online
• No early voting in NYS, but Absentee Ballots are available between 30 and 7 days prior to
Election Day.
• No Identification Required (although 31 states are said to require it)

18. Election Types
• Primary
• Open: All registered voters may choose on the day of the primary in which party’s
primary they will participate.
• Closed: Only registered members of a political party may vote to select their candidate.
• General
• Some states allow a runoff election: if no candidate wins an absolute majority in the
primary, usually where there are more than two candidates, the runoff is held between
the two who received the most votes.

19. Direct Democracy in Action (2 Types)
Ballot Initiatives
• 24 states have this
• “proposed laws or policy changes”
• The process varies from state to state and can be direct (as proposed), or indirect
(with the legislature generating the language, and/or generating an alternative
legislative proposal).

20. Direct Democracy in Action (continued)
Ballot Initiatives (continued)
• Passes with a majority vote, although some states require the majority to exceed a
certain percentage threshold with regard to the total number of votes cast in a
previous, or present, general election.
• Other exceptions exist, particularly with regard to State Constitutional
Amendment proposals (e.g., NV requires a majority vote in two successive
general elections and FL requires a 60% threshold be met).
• E.g., marijuana legalization for recreational use (the book has more examples on
pp. 224-225)

21. Direct Democracy in Action (continued)
• Legislative Referendum
• All 50 states have this
• Two types:
• Legislative- the legislature refers a measure to the voters for approval.
• Popular- a measure that appears on the ballot as a result of a voter petition drive.
• “the practice of referring proposed laws passed by a legislature to the vote of the
electorate for approval or rejection.”
• Subject to judicial action (if a court finds it violates the state or national constitution it
can be overturned).
• This happened with regard to proposition 8 in CA, which banned same-sex marriage.

22. The Recall Election (Correcting a Mistake)
• 18 states have this process (not NYS, however)
• For governors and state officials
• Not for the President and Congress
• This happened to Governor Gray Davis in CA (2003)

23. Left out of the Textbook (but of interest)
Advisory Referendum
• Gives voters “public questions to be voted upon.” It is non-binding and
may be placed on the ballot by the governor or the legislature.
• We’ll look at a Sample Ballot from New Jersey, which doesn’t use an initiative
process, but does feature two such questions on the November 8, 2016 ballot

24. The Electoral College
• Puts an intermediate body of electors between the voters and the presidential
candidates.
• The U.S. is the only country to do this.
• Electoral college breakdown:
• 435 House Representatives
• 100 Senators
• 3 D.C.
• 538 Total available votes (538 /2 = 269), therefore the magic number is 270
• The distribution is based on Congressional Representation (except in D.C.)

25. The Electoral College (continued)
• Winner Takes All: Whoever wins the majority of state electors’ votes wins the entire
state.
• Except in Maine and Nebraska
• The rule is rarely violated, but it has happened (1976) (p. 226).
• A few times in history, the electoral college has failed to produce a majority for any
candidate:
• 1800: Thomas Jefferson was chosen by the House over Aaron Burr after an exact tie.
• 1824: John Quincy Adams was selected over Andrew Jackson, Henry Clay, and William H.
Crawford, even though Jackson had more electoral and popular votes, none had an outright majority
of electoral votes.

26. The Electoral College (continued)
• Since 1824, on four occasions the candidate with more electoral votes won
over the candidate with more popular votes:
• 1876: Rutherford B. Hayes won the electoral college, but had fewer popular votes than
Samuel Tilden.
• 1888: Benjamin Harrison won the electoral college, but had fewer popular votes than Grover
Cleveland (Cleveland ran again in the next election and became president- he is therefore
counted as president #22 and #24).
• 2000: George W. Bush won the electoral college, but had fewer popular votes than Al Gore.
• 2016: Donald J. Trump won the electoral college, but had fewer popular votes than Hillary
Clinton.

27. What Happened in November, 2016?
7 electors voted for someone other than their party’s nominee:
Source: The New York Times, “A Historic Number of Electors Defected, and Most Were Supposed to Vote for Clinton,”
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/12/19/us/elections/electoral-college-results.html?_r=1 (accessed 4/1/17)

28. What Happened in November, 2016? (Cont’d)
Source: U.S. Election Atlas, “2016 Presidential Election Results,” http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/index.html (accessed 4/1/17)

29. What Happened in November, 2016? (Cont’d)
Source: The Washington Post, “Live Results: Presidential Election,”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/2016-election-results/us-presidential-race/?utm_term=.4608cd75f91b (accessed 4/1/17)

30. What Happened in November, 2016? (Cont’d)
Map Left, Source: http://www-personal.umich.edu/~mejn/election/2012/countymaprb1024.png (accessed 4/1/17)
Map Right, Source: http://metrocosm.com/election-2016-map-3d/ (accessed 4/1/17)
Election 2012

31. What Happened in November, 2016? (Cont’d)
Source: Bloomberg Politics, “Tracking the 2016 Presidential Money Race,” December 9, 2016,
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/graphics/2016-presidential-campaign-fundraising/ (accessed 4/1/17)

32. The End
Any Questions?