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.

As the plugged-in presidential campaign has arguably reached maturity, Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age challenges popular claims about the democratizing effect of Digital Communication Technologies (DCTs). Analyzing campaign strategies, structures, and tactics from the past six presidential election cycles, Stromer-Galley reveals how, for all their vaunted inclusivity and tantalizing promise of increased two-way communication between candidates and the individuals who support them, DCTs have done little to change the fundamental dynamics of campaigns. The expansion of new technologies has presented candidates with greater opportunities to micro-target potential voters, cheaper and easier ways to raise money, and faster and more innovative ways to respond to opponents. The need for communication control and management, however, has made campaigns slow and loathe to experiment with truly interactive internet communication technologies. Citizen involvement in the campaign historically has been and, as this book shows, continues to be a means to an end: winning the election for the candidate. For all the proliferation of apps to download, polls to click, videos to watch, and messages to forward, the decidedly undemocratic view of controlled interactivity is how most campaigns continue to operate. In the fully revised second edition, Presidential Campaigning in the Internet Age examines election cycles from 1996, when the World Wide Web was first used for presidential campaigning, through 2016 when campaigns had the full power of advertising on social media sites. As the book charts changes in internet communication technologies, it shows how, even as campaigns have moved from a mass mediated to a networked paradigm, the possibilities these shifts in interactivity seem to promise for citizen input and empowerment remain farther than a click away.

In the presidential campaign of 1948, Henry Wallace set out to challenge the conventional wisdom of his time, blaming the United States, instead of the Soviet Union, for the Cold War, denouncing the popular Marshall Plan, and calling for an end to segregation. In addition, he argued that domestic fascism--rather than international communism--posed the primary threat to the nation. He even welcomed Communists into his campaign, admiring their commitment to peace. Focusing on what Wallace himself later considered his campaign's most important aspect, the troubled relationship between non-Communist progressives like himself and members of the American Communist Party, Thomas W. Devine demonstrates that such an alliance was not only untenable but, from the perspective of the American Communists, undesirable. Rather than romanticizing the political culture of the Popular Front, Devine provides a detailed account of the Communists' self-destructive behavior throughout the campaign and chronicles the frustrating challenges that non-Communist progressives faced in trying to sustain a movement that critiqued American Cold War policies and championed civil rights for African Americans without becoming a sounding board for pro-Soviet propaganda.

Combining primary sources with expert commentary, this timely book probes critical moments in U.S. presidential elections in the last 20th- and early 21st-centuries, empowering readers to better understand and analyze the electoral process. Presidential Campaigns: Documents Decoded illuminates both the high stakes of a presidential campaign and the gaffes, controversies, and excesses that often influence the outcome. With a view to enabling readers to develop skills essential to political literacy, the book examines crisis points in modern presidential elections from the early 1950s through the late 2000s. Chronologically organized, the study focuses on key events pertinent to each election. It provides an original account of the event, such as a debate transcript or news report, as well as a discussion detailing how the issue emerged and why it was important. This unique and engaging approach enables students to experience the actual source material as voters might have. At the same time, it shows them how an expert views the material, facilitating a deeper understanding of the narratives every presidential campaign constructs around its candidates, its party, and its opponents.

The use of wedge issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and immigration has become standard political strategy in contemporary presidential campaigns. Why do candidates use such divisive appeals? Who in the electorate is persuaded by these controversial issues? And what are the consequences for American democracy? In this provocative and engaging analysis of presidential campaigns, Sunshine Hillygus and Todd Shields identify the types of citizens responsive to campaign information, the reasons they are responsive, and the tactics candidates use to sway these pivotal voters. The Persuadable Voter shows how emerging information technologies have changed the way candidates communicate, who they target, and what issues they talk about. As Hillygus and Shields explore the complex relationships between candidates, voters, and technology, they reveal potentially troubling results for political equality and democratic governance. The Persuadable Voter examines recent and historical campaigns using a wealth of data from national surveys, experimental research, campaign advertising, archival work, and interviews with campaign practitioners. With its rigorous multimethod approach and broad theoretical perspective, the book offers a timely and thorough understanding of voter decision making, candidate strategy, and the dynamics of presidential campaigns.

Americans tend to see negative campaign ads as just that: negative. Pundits, journalists, voters, and scholars frequently complain that such ads undermine elections and even democratic government itself. But John G. Geer here takes the opposite stance, arguing that when political candidates attack each other, raising doubts about each other’s views and qualifications, voters—and the democratic process—benefit. In Defense of Negativity, Geer’s study of negative advertising in presidential campaigns from 1960 to 2004, asserts that the proliferating attack ads are far more likely than positive ads to focus on salient political issues, rather than politicians’ personal characteristics. Accordingly, the ads enrich the democratic process, providing voters with relevant and substantial information before they head to the polls. An important and timely contribution to American political discourse, In Defense of Negativity concludes that if we want campaigns to grapple with relevant issues and address real problems, negative ads just might be the solution.