Party Organizations' Electioneering Arms Race

Abstract

Abstract Party organizations are the electioneering arms of political parties. In the United States, the Democratic and Republican organizations are constantly changing as they try to one‐up each other in a political arms race set against an ever‐evolving institutional and technological context. In this essay, we discuss the history of political parties over the past century to illustrate how changes to party organizations set the groundwork for new, cutting‐edge contributions to political science with an eye toward teaching young researchers where we think the next big thing might come from. We go on to discuss more recent changes to the environment in which today's party organizations operate and speculate about the kinds of questions that young researchers may want to consider asking.