Understanding Michigan's Electoral Competitiveness: Swing Counties 1976-2018

Third-party participation in plurality elections should be rare, given the low probability of electoral success. In the United States, the entrenched two-party system makes third-party candidacies especially puzzling. We develop a general theory of these candidacies based on the electoral context, focusing on electoral competition and volatility. When electoral competition is either low or high we expect the number of third-party candidates to be high, due to the opportunities to raise attention to policy issues or affect the election outcome. Moderate levels of competition will produce low levels of third-party candidate participation, as there are fewer prospects of drawing votes or attention. Volatility is expected to have a positive effect, since high volatility signals a de-aligned electorate. We evaluate our claims using US gubernatorial elections, 1977—2005. The results support our claims, suggesting that third-party candidacies are shaped by the degree of electoral volatility and competition.

Conservation invokes a range of policy issues including questions of economics, recreation, public good, stewardship, and governance obligations. When U.S. legislators consider creating new National Park units, interrelated policy issues influence decisions about whether to support or oppose a new site. In this article, we explored the influence of electoral competition, political party in control, and presidential election year on the number of new National Park units created between 1934 and 2014. Electoral competition theory hypothesizes that as the congressional majority margin decreases (gets more competitive), politicians act in more strategic and less partisan ways. In this analysis, high electoral competition occurred if the party in power had less than a 55% majority; low electoral competition was defined as a 55% or more majority. Three conditions of political control were also examined: (a) Democrats controlled the Presidency and the House, (b) Republicans controlled the Presidency and the House, and (c) shared party control (one party controlled the Presidency and the other party controlled the House). The effect that presidential election years had on the number of new park units created was also considered. Results indicated that more park units were created during periods of low electoral competition (M = 5.00) than high electoral competition (M = 2.04), F (1, 79) = 7.24, p = .009, ? = .084 (Hypothesis 1). In addition, there was evidence of partisanship (Hypothesis 2). When Democrats controlled both the Presidency and the House, an average of 5.55 new park units were created annually. When political control was shared, an average of 3.34 park units were created per year, and when Republicans were in control only one park unit on average was created annually, F (2, 78) = 3.54, p = .034, ? = .289. More park units were created in presidential election years (M = 5.02), than nonpresidential election years (M = 2.06), F (1, 74) = 2.32, p = .024, ? = .259 (Hypothesis 3). There was no evidence of interaction effects among the variables (contrary to Hypothesis 4). This research contributes to the existing literature on the development and growth of the National Park System by analyzing the role of electoral competition, political control, and presidential election years as they effect the creation of new National Park units.Subscribe to JPRA

Assessing the Validity of an Election’s Result: History, Theory, and Present Threats

WHETHER CAMPAIGN FINANCE reform improves the competitiveness of elections is a vigorously debated issue. Some observers claim that limits on the size of contributions are inherently biased in favor of incumbents. These scholars reason that campaign contribution limits prevent challengers from mounting effective campaigns (Smith 1995). Others argue that restricting contributions may be the only way for challengers to even the playing field. These scholars reason that incumbents have a large advantage in fundraising and that limits curtail this advantage (Eom and Gross 2006). Given the recent Supreme Court decision that disallowed Vermont’s contribution limits on the grounds that they were too low, it is important to investigate the effect of low limits on the competitiveness of elections.1 This article fills this gap in the literature. Scholars have analyzed the effects of contribution limits on competitiveness in elections, with most of the recent findings showing that limits lead to closer margins of victory and help challengers at the expense of incumbents (Eom and Gross 2006; Milyo, Primo and Groseclose 2006; Stratmann and Aparicio-Castillo 2006). These studies examine contribution limit amounts in a linear fashion and do not measure non-linearities that may conceal variations in the marginal effect of contribution limits, depending on whether limits are high or low. Further, these studies do not focus on low limits, which I define here as an individual contribution limit of $500 or lower per election cycle. The large variation in state-level campaign finance regulations facilitates study of the effects of these regulations on the competitiveness of state elections. In addition to variability across states, there is also variation over time, since some states have changed their laws, particularly since the late1970s. This study treats each of the states with singlemember districts as a campaign finance reform laboratory.2 It examines the effects of these laws between 1980 and 2006, using the following as measures of the competitiveness of elections: the difference in the vote share between an incumbent and a challenger, whether the incumbent receives more than 55 percent of the popular vote, whether the incumbent receives 85 percent or more of the popular vote, whether the incumbent wins, and the number of candidates. I consider primarily individual contribution limits, since individual contributions comprise the majority of contributions to candidates. However, I also examine the effect of political action committee (PAC) contribution limits on the competitiveness of elections. One difficulty in studying the effect of campaign finance laws on election outcomes is that there are potentially confounding factors. For example, the same conditions that determine whether a contribu-

Is the United States polarized? In order to address this question, this dissertation explores three dimensions of political polarization. Three related, but independent, essays on political polarization provide information on questions concerning polarization, First, the studies on polarization themselves appear to be polarized. Chapter 2 focused on reviewing past studies on polarization. Still, one side argues that American citizens are severely polarized, while the other side argues that polarization is an illusion (Abramowitz and Saunders 2008; Abramowitz 2010; Fiorina 2014, 2017; Mason 2016). A sample is carefully chosen from the sociological and political science SCIMAGO rankings. Since almost all measures of polarization used in earlier works can be classified as a single type of polarization, all measures of polarization are coded into four types: issue consistency, issue divergence, affective polarization, and perceived polarization. Based on the systematic review and meta-analysis in Chapter 2, no strong evidence supports the idea of a "polarized America." One interesting finding is that the majority of the studies that produced significant results used ANES data, with a secondary group using the GSS. While there are many differences between the two surveys, the key distinction is the timing of the field surveys. Second, Chapter 3 begins with the premise that political interests will be deeply related to political action, and so will political polarization. For example, recent studies present evidence that political interest can vary depending on the political context (Prior and Bougher 2018). Political interest also ebbs and flows with politically salient events, especially federal elections. In Chapter 3, the focus is whether polarization is a stable characteristic of the electorate, like political interest or partisanship. Previous scholarship emphasizes the "situational" characteristics of interest for change and adaptation to a new environment as opposed to the "static" characteristics of interest (Featherman et al. 1994; Prior and Bougher 2018). Therefore, the research question centers on political polarization, as under the same presumption, the degree of political polarization within the general public is influenced by political interest and electoral circumstance. Using data from two nationally representative surveys, the ANES and the GSS, the level of issue polarization increases similarly in both sets of data, but the patterns of sorting are different. The level of sorting in the ANES fluctuates, whereas instability shows a more dramatic increase in the GSS. In contrast, the overall level of sorting in the ANES is higher than in the GSS. Thus, the difference in the level of polarization between two surveys comes from the timing of the surveys. While the ANES is typically conducted from August to December in the midst of the election campaign, the GSS is typically conducted from February to May. Since the GSS and the ANES surveys do not conduct surveys in non-election years, it is difficult to isolate the effect of elections on the level of polarization. The Pew Research Center conducts annual political polls. Using Pew political surveys, I investigated the difference in the level of polarization between election years and non-election years and between presidential elections and midterm elections. The findings demonstrate that the timing of a survey has a significant effect on the level of polarization (i.e., sorting) in general. This finding suggests that elections are a key determinant of the intensity of the level of polarization, partisan strength, and political views. The level of polarization, like measures of political interest and party affiliation, is not stable. There are fluctuations in the level of polarization that are associated with points in time within the electoral cycle, and citizens are more likely to show more polarized attitudes as a function of the proximity of an election. Chapter 4 focused on the level of polarization at the state level. Studies of polarization have received more attention at the national level due to the difficulty of collecting enough samples. The CCES provides enough samples of between 30,000 and 50,000 individuals every year to make it possible to examine the state level of polarization. In particular, Chapter 4 investigates the relationship between state swing in a presidential election and state polarization. The fourth chapter examined the potential relationship between the phenomenon of state swing or state competitiveness in presidential elections and the state's level of polarization. By concentrating on sorting, the connection between polarization at the state level and swing states, including those that are competitive in presidential elections, is analyzed. Swing states should have more polarization than safe states like California and Texas. Using an independent sample t-test, the degree of polarization between swing states and safe states is significantly different. The effects of polarization on the potential for state swing, or the likelihood that the state will be competitive in presidential elections, are examined. Sorting has a sizable magnitude and significant impact on the probability that a state will change its support in presidential elections, using a logistic model. States are more likely to change their support in presidential elections as the degree of polarization within those states rises or falls. The impact of partisan composition within a state is one of the chapter's more intriguing findings. The findings show that a more balanced partisan composition within a state increases the likelihood of switching support from one party candidate to another in presidential elections and makes the state's presidential elections more competitive. In addition, possible connections might exist between a swing state and a person's degree of polarization. Using the same four categories of swing states, there might be differences in which groups of citizens are more likely to be polarized than others, depending on the state in which they live and the circumstances surrounding the state election. Based on an OLS model, mixed results were obtained regarding the prediction of the impact of the state's electoral circumstances (competition, TV ad spending, and campaign events) and the swing experience on the degree of polarization. The three essays on political polarization in the United States suggest several implications. First, based on meta-analysis in chapters 2 and 3, I concluded that Americans are still not polarized as Fiorina (2018) recently contended. While some types of polarization are, arguably, on the rise and pervasive in the mass public, scholarly findings still do not reach a consensus. It is too early to conclude that the United States is polarized. One of the most challenging aspects of previous and recent research on polarization is that it is almost entirely based on survey data collected in the midst of presidential or midterm elections (i.e., the ANES, the GSS). The campaign season accentuates partisan polarization for the average citizen in a way other times do not. The findings in Chapter 3 follow this notion and suggest that the level of polarization among the mass public can be influenced by external factors such as electoral circumstances. Future research should evaluate the reasons behind each type of polarization and how the political circumstances and the survey instrument may influence measures of political polarization. Also, it should be examined how these conditions affect different political outcomes. Second, scholars should be careful when evaluating polarization at the sub-national level, as shown in Chapter 4. It is easy to conflate the concepts of geographical polarization and state polarization. There are two distinct ideas here. This dissertation shed some light on the distinction between state-level and geographic polarization. It also contributed to clarifying the difference between the state-level concept of polarization and the national one. In conclusion, polarization is a complex concept that demands careful discussion. This dissertation presents several original perspectives and ideas that will be helpful for future studies on political polarization in the United States and other democratic societies.

The United States Presidential elections are held every four years, and they bring a time of economic uncertainty that raises many questions domestically and internationally. In this essay, the relationship between the economy and the presidential election years will be analyzed. Some of those include changes in the investment markets like stocks and real estate, the expectation of the president's policies and how they will affect the economy, what the consumers should expect, how each presidential candidate (Donald Trump and Kamala Harris) has different policies, and how those policies will affect the economy of the US and internationally. By looking at stats from past elections and trends, the confusing connection between the economy and the years that have a presidential election can be further understood, showing how the outcome of United States presidential elections impacts the growth and the power of the economy.

KeyWords: Kenya; elections; International Criminal Court; democracyKenya managed to conduct passable and relatively peaceful national and local elections in March 2013, the first such elections since the passage of its comprehensively democratic Constitution in August 2010. The relatively smooth transition from the departing Mwai Kibaki administration to the new Uhuru Kenyatta regime has marked a critical step forward from the debacle of state-threatening violence of the 2007 elections, in which more than a thousand people died and an estimated six hundred thousand persons were internally displaced. At the same time the elections, in and of themselves, represented an important step toward implementation of the new Constitution, approved in a special referendum, after voters rejected a draft five years earlier.The relatively violence-free outcome of the 2013 elections, on its face, seemed to offer at least a partial refutation of two literatures critical of conducting competitive, multiparty elections in weak states, as Kenya continues to be regarded.! One influential literature contends that these elections, absent also adequate levels of economic development, risk promoting stateweakening domestic violence and even international conflict (see Snyder 2000; Mansfield & Snyder 2005). The passage of the 2010 Constitution offered an affirmation that state strengthening democratization is possible after severe electoral violence, albeit, in this case, with the aid of international mediation in the form of the Kenya National Development and Reconciliation (KNDR) program. The 2008 KNDR agenda had succeeded in joining the election opponents from the 2007 election in a power sharing agreement fashioned by former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his team of Eminent African Personalities. For the new government of Uhuru Kenyatta and William Ruto, however, the complex task of furthering progress on the KNDR agenda is now only one of the objectives. The government must also find a way forward in terms of Kenya's goals and the roles it wishes to play in furthering peace and stability in the Horn of Africa, especially in the wake of the terrorist attack in Nairobi in September 2013.The other literature also insists that democracy must follow sequentially after the creation of a strong state and certain levels of economic development (see Lipset 1981; Huntington 1991; Linz & Stepan 1996). As a practical matter, however, with the end of the Cold War, sub-Saharan African countries found themselves confronting a number of challenges simultaneously, including the challenges of Third Wave democratization, the requirements of economic development, and the need for state strengthening after decades of authoritarian rule. Thus, following competitive elections, nascent democracies in Kenya and elsewhere in the region have needed to initiate and reinforce the socioeconomic development and state strengthening that may not have been accomplished beforehand. To what extent did the relatively violence-free 2013 elections indicate that enough of the KNDR agenda had been accomplished, or will the jury still be out on this question until perhaps the next general elections in 2018? Time alone will tell.This commentary will summarize the outcomes of the election and its major accomplishments, and then consider the extent to which Kenya may or may not have managed to create the foundations for the future free, fair, and peaceful elections that are needed to achieve a sustainable democratic state.Election OutcomesIn a crowded field of eight candidates in the presidential election, Uhuru Kenyatta's Jubilee alliance prevailed, receiving 50.51 percent of the valid votes cast among the 85 percent of the country's 14,352,533 registered voters who turned out. This result barely enabled Kenyatta to escape an obligatory second-round runoff contest with the opposition candidate from the Congress for Reform and Democracy (CORD), Raila Odinga. …

Purpose. The impact of the Internet on health care in growing, therefore emphasizing the need for physical therapists to become knowledgeable about using and evaluating this technology as a source of information. As the profession of physical therapy moves toward online education and evidence-based practice, skill in the use of the Internet will be essential. While clinicians have always been encouraged to use the latest research in clinical practice, the Internet makes access to that information immediate. The purpose of this descriptive study was to determine access, current skill, criteria used to evaluate Web sites, and professional use of the Internet by physical therapists in Michigan. Methods. Five hundred licensed physical therapists from the three largest counties in Michigan were randomly selected to participate. One hundred ninety-three surveys were completed and returned (38.6% response rate). Results. Sixty percent of physical therapists reported they have Internet access at work, with physical therapists working in public schools reporting the greatest access. Infty-three percent reported they had little experience in using the Internet for professional purposes. The most commonly used professional resource was MEDLINE (45.5%). The top criteria used to evaluate the quality of information found on the Internet were personal knowledge (61%) and site sponsorship (39.5%). Conclusions. This study suggests a need to increase the knowledge and comfort of physical therapists in using and evaluating the Internet for professional purposes. Keywords: Physical therapy, Internet, World Wide Web, Health care. INTRODUCTION The introduction of the Internet has greatly affected our society and health care worldwide. Computers used to access the Internet have been integrated into the school, home, and work place at a faster rate than television and the videocassette recorder, and have also been incorporated into health care al a similarly rapid rale, transforming the delivery of care.1-6 The Internet contains vast amounts of medical information, which may benefit health care professionals and palients alike, as it offers immediate access to current medical information and peer-reviewed publications.1,7-10 Like all health professions, the field of physical therapy rapidly advancing. One major change the integration of evidence in clinical decision making, and in particular, the use of evidence-based practice. As described by Sackett, evidence-based medicine is the conscientious, explicit, and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individuals. It means integrating individual clinical expertise with the best available external clinical evidence from systematic research.11(p2) Sackett describes five steps in this model of patient care. These include: developing the clinical question, finding the best available evidence to answer your question, critically appraising the evidence, integrating the critical appraisal with your clinical expertise and the patient's situation and values, and, finally, evaluating your effectiveness and efficiency in the first four steps.12(p4) As noted, the second step in this process locating the best evidence available. The use of the Internet currently the most expeditious means to locate evidence in the peer-reviewed literature. Use of the Internet in physical therapy relatively new, and much of the literature related to the Internet and physical therapy addresses educating physical therapists in its use and suggesting possible uses in the future. In a paper describing Web resources for physical therapists, Singer and Tan13 provide basic information on search engines, medical databases, and professional LISTSERVS. Sherrington, Herbert, Maher, and Moseley14 describe the Physiotherapy Evidence Database (PEDro) that contains randomized clinical trials and systematic reviews of the literature in physical therapy. …

This paper is a continuation of a contribution published [1] by the same authors analysing possible reasons for low voter turnout in the City of Neu-Ulm. This paper operated under the limitation that only summary voter participation data from past elections was available which could be matched with demographic data from the city constituencies. Data that could be used to derive individual motivation was not available. To remedy this limitation, a questionnaire was sent to 3,000 inhabitants of Neu-Ulm to relate their voter participation to several possible factors influencing the propensity to vote and to derive recommendations for the City Council how to improve on voter participation in future elections. This contribution presents some preliminary results from the study.

This chapter deals with the democratic consolidation in South Korea. After a successful democratic transition, the country completed the democratic consolidation process in a relatively short period of time. Since 1987, South Koreans have institutionalized and regularized competitive and fair elections, and the electoral space has expanded from the national to the local level, and broadened to societal areas. The military that had actually ruled the country for 26 years returned to the barracks and has been under firm civilian control. The finishing touch on completing the consolidation process was the first peaceful transfer of power to long-time opposition leader, Kim Dae Jung, in the presidential election in December 1997. With the peaceful turnover of government by means of fair and competitive elections, Korean democracy can be considered consolidated.

IntroductionGiven that 72% of internet users seek out health information using an internet search engine (Google being the most popular); we sought to investigate the public internet search interest in cannabis as a health topic when cannabis legislation appeared on state ballots and during presidential elections.Materials and methodsWe searched Google Trends for “cannabis” as a health topic. Google Trends data were extracted during the time period of May 1, 2008 to May 1, 2019 for the United States (US) and select states (18) within the US including: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, and Washington when cannabis was on the ballot. These state elections were referenda, not legislative votes. We then compared the internet search interest for cannabis before and after each election. To evaluate whether any associations with changes in the volume of cannabis internet searches were specific to the cannabis topic, or also occurred with other topics of general interest during an election year, the authors ran additional analyses of previously popular debated policies during Presidential Elections that may act as control topics. These policies included Education, Gun Control, Climate Change, Global Warming, and Abortion. We used the autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) algorithm to forecast expected relative internet search interests for the 2012 and 2016 Presidential Elections. Individual variables were compared using a linear regression analysis for the beta coefficients performed in Stata Version 15.1 (StataCorp).ResultsPublic internet search interest for “cannabis” increased during the voting month above the previous mean internet search interest for all 18 bills. For the US, observed internet search interest during each Presidential Election was 26.9% [95% CI, 18.4–35.4%] greater than expected in 2012 and 29.8% [95% CI, 20.8–38.8%] greater than expected in 2016. In 2016, significant state-level findings included an increase in relative internet search rates for cannabis in states with higher usage rates of cannabis in the past month (Coeff (95% CI), 3.4 (2.8–4.0)) and past month illicit drug use except cannabis rates (Coeff (95% CI), 17.4 (9.8–25.0)). Relative internet search rates for cannabis from 2008 to 2019 were also associated with increased cannabis usage in the past month (Coeff (95% CI), 3.1 (2.5–3.7)). States with higher access to legal cannabis were associated with higher relative internet search volumes for cannabis (Coeff (95% CI), 0.31 (0.15–0.46)). Of the five additional policies that were searched as topics, only two showed an increase in internet search interest during each Presidential Election. Climate Change increased by 3.5% [95% CI, − 13-20%] in 2012 and 20.1% [95% CI, 0–40%] in 2016 while Global Warming increased by 1.1% [95% CI, − 19-21%] in 2012 and 4.6% [95% CI, − 6-15%] in 2016.ConclusionBased on these results, we expect public interest in cannabis will spike prior to the Presidential election in 2020. Of the five selected control policies, only two showed an increase in internet search interest during both Presidential Elections and neither exceeded the internet search increase of cannabis. These results may indicate the growing awareness of cannabis in the US and mark a possible target for the timely dissemination of evidence-based information regarding cannabis and its usage/side-effects during future elections. Consequently, the results of this study may be important to physicians since they will likely receive an increased volume of questions relating to cannabis and its therapeutic uses during election season from interested patients. We recommend establishing a cannabis repository of evidence-based information, providing physician education, and a dosing guide be created to enable physicians to provide high quality care around the issue of cannabis.

Allegations of voting irregularities in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections seemingly compromised the integrity of the electoral outcomes. Because elections inform voters and provide them with information to be used in future elections, one can speculate that voters also can learn to fear electoral unfairness in future elections. This article examines how Blacks, Whites, and Latinos assessed prospects for voting irregularities in the 2008 presidential election. Using public opinion data from the National Politics and Socialization Survey, the analysis discerns whether there are racial differences in perceptions of voting irregularities. It tests the influence of trust in national government, ethics about the importance of the vote, and group consciousness (for Black respondents, specifically) in determining fear of voting irregularities. Results indicate generalized fear of voting irregularities, without racial differences. Political distrust enhances fear of voting irregularities. Blacks’ racial consciousness enhances fear of voting irregularities in the 2008 presidential election.

I examine how the historical legacies of inter-ethnic complementarity and competition influence contemporary electoral competition and its effects on patterns of ethnic violence. Using local comparisons within Gujarat, a single Indian state known for its non-violent local traditions yet also for widespread ethnic pogroms in 2002, I provide evidence that while towns with close votes in the preceding state elections do predict an increased incidence of ethnic riots, these effects are diminished in medieval port towns that historically enjoyed exogenous inter-ethnic complementarities. Furthermore, unlike other towns where pre-riot electoral competitiveness coincided with historic inter-ethnic competition and where the ruling party reaped well-targeted electoral dividends from the riots, medieval port constituencies exhibited a relative vote swing of more than seven percentage points against that party. These rendered medieval port constituencies marginal constituencies in future elections, which also saw less ethnic violence.

BASIC TO MODELS of electoral competition is the assumption that candidates adopt positions on policy issues as a means of attracting votes. However, candidates are also judged on the basis of human qualities and other attributes not related to the policies they espouse in a campaign. The spatial theory of electoral competition has, in the past, treated such attributes as part of the policy space over which candidates compete. However, certain difficulties attend such an interpretation. For example, it is difficult to view a candidate's personality as something which can be altered to please the voters. The mistakes that an incumbent has committed in office are not things he can erase to compete more effectively for votes. A candidate's religion cannot be abandoned because it is a political liability. In short, there are nonspatial attributes that affect voter evaluations of each candidate, which are beyond that candidate's immediate control. It is the purpose of this paper to incorporate these nonspatial attributes into the spatial model of electoral competition to show how the policy outcome of two candidate electoral competition is af-

We examined the importance for voters of health care as an issue in the presidential election of 2004, how this ranking compares with the importance of health care in past elections, and which issues voters regard as the most important health care issues in the months before the election. We studied data from 22 national opinion surveys, 9 of them conducted as telephone surveys during the 2004 presidential campaign, 10 conducted as telephone surveys during the previous three presidential elections, and 3 conducted as national exit polls of voters. Voters ranked health care as the fourth most important issue in deciding their vote for president in 2004. The top health care issues for voters were the costs of health care and prescription drugs, prescription-drug benefits for the elderly, the uninsured, and Medicare. Bioterrorism and abortion were also important issues for voters. The voters most concerned about health care were older persons and those who identified themselves as Democrats. Four issues less salient to voters were racial disparities in health care, aid to developing countries to prevent and treat human immunodeficiency virus infection and the acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, medical malpractice, and the quality of care. Although health care ranks higher in importance among voters than most other domestic issues, it is only fourth in importance in deciding their vote for president. The health care issues of greatest concern are the affordability of health care and health care insurance. Health care issues do not appear likely to play a decisive role in the presidential election in 2004, but they might make a difference in some swing states if the race is close.