Battleground States Research Articles

The Presidential Pork Barrel and the Conditioning Effect of Term

I examine across‐state distributions of procurement contracts from 1984 to 2004 to test two hypotheses that a presidential electoral connection explains geographic patterns in federal spending. Both hypotheses are derived from a basic vote‐buying theory and are assumed to be conditioned by the president's term. The first hypothesis is that, during first terms, the president will direct a disproportionate amount of procurement dollars per capita to battleground states. The second is that, during first terms, states that gave winning presidential candidates a disproportionately large share of their popular vote will benefit this way. I reject both and, therefore, challenge the generalizability of important extant work. Instead, I find that states that gave presidents disproportionately fewer of their popular votes in the reelection receive more procurement dollars per capita—that is, there is a counterintuitive second‐term effect.

Hedonic Damages – One More Time: A Symposium

On January 5, 2008, the National Association of Forensic Economics (NAFE) sponsored its third symposium on “hedonic damages,” this time entitled “Hedonic Damages – One More Time.” The first symposium on hedonic damages was presented at the December 1989 Allied Social Sciences meetings in Atlanta, Georgia with the title “Hedonic Damages and the Value of Life.” Papers from that session by W. Kip Viscusi, Ted R. Miller, Stan V. Smith, and William T. Dickens were published in Volume 3, No. 3 of this journal (1990). The second symposium on hedonic damages was presented at the January 2000 Allied Social Sciences meetings in Boston, Massachusetts with the title “Hedonic Damages Ten Years Later.” Papers from that session by W. Kip Viscusi, J. Paul Leigh and Jorge A. Garcia, Ted R. Miller, Stan V. Smith and Thomas R. Ireland, along with an introduction by Peter Marks and Thomas R. Ireland were published in Volume 13, No. 2 of this journal (2000). W. Kip Viscusi and Ted R. Miller returned as presenters for a third time at the January, 2008 symposium, along with Brian McDonald and John O. Ward. Thomas Ireland acted as the organizer of the 2008 symposium and Peter Marks served as its chair. The term “hedonic damages” first entered general public consciousness on December 12, 1988 with a front page story in the Wall Street Journal by Paul M Barrett on “The Price of Pleasure,” featuring Stan V. Smith and his successful presentation of hedonic damages testimony in the case of Sherrod v. Berry (1985, 1987, and 1988). Two federal judges in Illinois had commented favorably about Smith’s testimony in the original opinion and one of the appeals decisions before the case was reversed on other grounds in 1988. The NAFE symposium in December of 1989 was designed to explore this interesting new development in the field of forensic economics. As of the 2000 symposium hedonic damages testimony had enjoyed several successes in individual states, but had been rejected by the courts in a number of reported decisions, particularly at the federal level. The threat of Daubert and Frye standards for admission of expert testimony being applied negatively to hedonic damage testimony had become one of the central features in the debate over this concept. As of 2008 hedonic damages testimony had become much more specialized. Because hedonic damages testimony had been rejected in a number of legal decisions, fewer and fewer forensic economists were involved, but Stan Smith, Robert Johnson, Brian McDonald, as well as several other economic experts

Battleground States versus Blackout States: The Behavioral Implications of Modern Presidential Campaigns

We examine the influence of “battleground” designation by presidential campaign strategists on the political activation and involvement of resource poor voters, particularly those in lower income brackets. We hypothesize that increased exposure to campaign stimuli may provide lower income voters in the contested states with an appreciable advantage over those in the “blackout” states by underwriting the costs associated with becoming engaged. Our findings show that the condition of living on contested electoral terrain does have a positive impact on the political interest and engagement levels of lower income voters. The results reinforce the importance of the political campaign as an instrument of democracy. Modern campaign strategies can diversify the electorate in meaningful ways, but the influence of the campaign is also limited by the narrow geographic targeting of party resources.

A Tale of Two Campaigns: Ralph Nader's Strategy in the 2004 Presidential Election

A Tale of Two Campaigns: Ralph Nader's Strategy in the 2004 Presidential Election

The Consequences of Presidential Battleground Strategies for Citizen Engagement

How consequential is residence in a presidential battleground state for how people engage in politics? I explore the effects of battleground strategies for campaign exposure, voter interest, political discussion, learning, and participation in the presidential campaign. I also consider the sources of battleground influence, including the campaign efforts of presidential candidates and particular partisan nature of battleground states. Using survey data from the 1992, 1996, and 2000 National Election Studies in conjunction with measures of state campaign context, I find that the effects of battleground environments are limited. Neither levels of campaign interest nor rates of political discussion are affected by presidential campaign intensity. While television advertising promotes learning and participation, battleground influence on the intention to vote reflects the partisan environment of a state rather than advertising or events sponsored by the presidential candidates.

Religious Influences in the 2004 Presidential Election

In this article, we examine the impact of religious variables on the vote in the 2004 presidential election. First, we review and evaluate two theories that underlie many interpretations of religion’s role in American electoral politics, namely, the ethnoreligious and the religious restructuring perspectives. Using both approaches, we deploy a comprehensive classification incorporating religious affiliations, beliefs, and practices that is quite successful in capturing the electoral impact of religion. We show that religious groups exhibited distinctive political priorities, attitudes toward the role of religion in the election, stands on critical campaign issues, and evaluations of President Bush’s performance in office. We find that some religious factors had an important role in the Republican victory, especially in the so‐called battleground states. Finally, we discuss some substantive implications of the findings for understanding public policies and policy making.

Voter Turnout in the 2000 Presidential Election: A Cross Section Analysis Study

The objective of this paper is to provide a comprehensive analysis that identifies the motivation of people who vote in the 2000 presidential election. We examine the influence that major issues, such as socioeconomic factors, as well as minor or regional issues have had upon registration and voter turnout. In order to analyze the effect of these factors on registration and voter turnout, a cross sectional study is performed rather than panel study since certain issues may influence one election but not others. One of the main contributions to the literature is that the Federal Tax Liability and the Federal Marginal Tax Rate highly correlated with registration and turnout. Moreover, we find that the Federal tax liability has a higher correlation than education and age. In addition, we find that being a battleground state has a great influence on voter turnout but not on registration. In the estimation section, we employ the sample selection bias correction using a two-step probit; this technique helps to learn more about the non-registered citizens. One of the main empirical findings is that if non-registrants were eligible to vote on Election Day, between 4-8% would be likely to do so.

Same-Sex Marriage Ballot Measures and the 2004 Presidential Election

Did ballot measures banning samesex marriage swing the 2004 general election to George W. Bush? In 2004, activists and state legislators placed anti-gay marriage questions on the general election ballots of 11 states. All of the ballot measures passed easily, receiving on average roughly 70 percent support.1 Pundits argued that the marriage measures on the November ballot would be a major motivating factor in the election and would help ensure Bush’s reelection. The measures, so the logic went, would receive broad support from social conservatives who would be mobilized to go to the polls primed to vote for Bush, who was fi rmly aligned with the issue. Merging county-level religious, socioeconomic, and political data with the 2004 election results, this article examines the electoral effects of same-sex marriage ballot measures in two key neighboring presidential battleground states, Michigan and Ohio. In both states, the anti-gay marriage measures passed easily, and overall statewide turnout increased from the 2000 election. However, Bush prevailed only in Ohio. To test the impact of the anti-gay marriage measures in both states, the analysis proceeds in three stages, examining fi rst the county-level voting patterns on the gay marriage bans, then patterns of countylevel turnout in 2004, and fi nally the countylevel support for President Bush in 2004.

Of Denominations and Districts: Examining the Influence of "Pro-life" Denominational Communities on State Representatives

One of the most notably unsolved puzzles in the study of politics and religion is whether and how Christian denominations influence the behavior of state-level politicians.1 As an initial step in addressing this puzzle, this essay suggests that the influence of Roman Catholic and evangelical Protestant denominational communities in three political battleground states have a significant statistical effect on the abortion position of state representatives. The general lack of empirical focus on religious community influ ence in state politics, the extant literature has covered the topic well in relation to members of Congress.2 Since social and political values are codified through the legislative process, scholars have often found that religious communities successfully hone their collective political atten tion on the legislative theater.3 In order to conduct an analysis of reli

The Electoral College, Mobilization, and Turnout in the 2000 Presidential Election

This study takes a two-stage approach to examining the impact of the electoral college on turnout in the 2000 presidential election. First, we examine whether battleground states received more media spending and visits by the candidates and their party committees compared to nonbattleground states. Second, we examine whether media spending and candidate visits were related to state-level turnout. The results of the project show that the battleground states did receive significantly more media expenditures and candidate visits from the two major party campaigns than nonbattleground states. Furthermore, when controlling for state-level contextual and political factors, the more media expenditures and candidate visits a state received the higher the state turnout. Finally, the analysis reveals that state battleground status indirectly impacted state-level turnout through its effect on media spending and candidate visits.

Detecting the Effects of Deceptive Presidential Advertisements in the Spring of 2004

Long before the political conventions of 2004, the Kerry and Bush campaigns and their surrogates were laying the groundwork for the fall campaign with heavy ad buys. Some of the assertions made on each side were misleading. Here we explore three misleading claims made on each side in the weeks following the effective end of the 2004 primary season and ask, Did they work? If so, with whom? Results from the National Annenberg Election Survey show that some of these misleading claims about George W. Bush and John Kerry were believed by a majority of citizens. Democrats were more likely to believe deceptive claims about Bush, whereas Republicans were more likely to embrace deceptive claims about Kerry. The claim that “George W. Bush favors sending American jobs overseas” gained traction in battleground states, even when demographic variables and party identification were taken into consideration.

Florida: The South's Premier Battleground State

Florida was the South’s lone battleground state from start to finish of presidential campaign 2004. In this critical battleground state, there was never a clear break between the end of presidential Campaign 2000 and the beginning of Campaign 2004. As one ended with a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, the next began. Each major party was intent on proving that its candidate really won the Sunshine State in 2000. Even the intervening gubernatorial election in 2002, featuring incumbent Republican Jeb Bush running against Democratic newcomer Bill McBride, was viewed as just a temporary blip in the seamless campaign season that stretched from December 2000 to November 2004.

South Carolina: Republican Success, Democratic Decline

In 2004 South Carolina continued to play an increasingly familiar role: a critical battleground state in the presidential nomination process but a minor, generally ignored player in the general election. South Carolina has become such a reliable source of eight electoral votes for Republican presidential candidates that the state no longer figures in presidential campaign strategies. Republican presidential candidates assume that the state will be a nearly fail-safe “red state” with little or no effort, and Democratic presidential candidates assume with a high degree of certainty that the state will once again be a Republican stronghold, regard-less of what happens elsewhere. In the 2004 presidential election these assumptions quickly turned into hard facts early on in the election cycle. Indeed, beginning with the 1964 presidential election, Republican presidential candidates have carried the state in ten of the eleven presidential contests to date, with only 1976 standing as the lone exception (when Georgia neighbor Jimmy Carter carried the state).

The Contemporary Presidency: Do Nebraska and Maine Have the Right Idea? The Political and Partisan Implications of the District System

After the 2000 presidential election, twenty‐one states considered legislation to award their presidential electors using the district system, wherein one elector is awarded to the popular vote winner of each congressional district and the two state electors are awarded to the popular vote winner statewide. Historically, the district system is viewed as the politically feasible alternative to direct elections because it removes the distortions of the winner‐take‐all system and can be enacted by state law rather than constitutional amendment. However, the ultimate desirability of the district system lies in how it would change the conduct of presidential campaigns, not the counting of electoral college votes. Under the district system, presidential campaigns would shift their priorities from battleground states to battleground districts. The complexity and uncertainty in targeting these districts would force candidates to contest a larger and more geographically diverse percentage of the population than the current system. Moreover, the changes in presidential campaigns would increase the likelihood of presidential coattails and the prospects for unified government by increasing the competitiveness of congressional elections in swing presidential districts. Finally, the district system has a conservative bias because the swing battleground districts favor Republican presidential candidates and have fewer minority residents and recipients of public assistance than the nation as a whole.

Implementing HAVA's Voter Education Requirement: A Crisis and a Federal Mandate Improve State-Local Cooperation in Florida

The political fallout from the presidential election of 2000 that landed on both state and local officials, HAVA's broadly written voter education requirement giving the state great latitude in defining education, and the act's block-grant funding allowing more programmatic decisions to be made by county supervisors of elections each played a role in improving voter education in Florida. Relationships between state and local election officials also improved, even though the state legislature expanded the rule-making and coordination roles of the state Division of Elections. Voter education efforts in the 2002 and 2004 election cycles, much more extensive than in 2000, were judged to be quite effective by both the voters and the county election supervisors. Improvements in voter confidence and participation paralleled the expanded voter education efforts in this highly competitive battleground state. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

Presidential Campaigns and Democracy

Every 4 years presidential candidates devote months and hundreds of millions of dollars campaigning for the highest office in the land. Some question whether these presidential campaigns actually make a difference in election outcomes. In 2000, the Bush and Gore campaigns provided a golden opportunity to empirically assess campaign effects because both candidates focused their campaigns on a set of "battleground" states. Data from the 2000 National Election Survey indicate that those who lived in battleground states had significantly more issue knowledge and issue salience than citizens from other states. Because the Electoral College, with its winner-take-all rules, encourages candidates to concentrate on battleground states, the results suggest that the Electoral College may have a pernicious effect on representative democracy.

An Alternative Account of the 2004 Presidential Election

The consensus immediately following the 2004 presidential election was that Bush won because of support for "moral values." I challenge this interpretation by showing that Bush won because of widespread increase in his support among white and married women. I hypothesize that this is a response to concerns about domestic security rather than support for Bush's position against gay marriage. In addition, Bush was generally helped by higher turnout, though Kerry's efforts brought down the Republican vote share in battleground states.

Up, Up and Away! Voter Participation in the 2004 Presidential Election

A record 122.3 million people, or 60.0% of those eligible, cast a vote for president in 2004. In this essay, I examine variation in voter participation among the states. I find that electoral competition in the battleground states was associated with higher turnout rates, and that where competition at the presidential level was not present, an amendment banning gay marriage or an interesting Senate election is related to higher voter turnout.

Florida: Too Close to Call, Again?!

Florida is once again a key battleground state, with nearly 850,000 more voters and two more Electoral College votes than in 2000—but no more chads since punch card ballots have been outlawed. There are ten “givens” about the sunshine state, such as the key role that independents will play, a higher younger voter turnout rate, more citizens voting absentee or early, intense GOTV efforts by both parties, an intensely competitive U.S. Senate race, a series of constitutional amendments intended to draw out infrequent voters, and lawsuits before and after the election. The biggest “uncertains” are: what will be the most important vote-decision issue(s); turnout rates and candidate preferences among African Americans, Hispanics, social conservatives, and women; and whether there will be a terrorist attack before Election Day.

Washington’s Irrational Cuba Policy

Research Article| March 01 2004 Washington’s Irrational Cuba Policy Lissa Weinmann Lissa Weinmann Lissa Weinmann directs programs on Cuba and the Americas at the World Policy Institute in New York City. Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google World Policy Journal (2004) 21 (1): 22–31. https://doi.org/10.1215/07402775-2004-2005 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissions Search Site Citation Lissa Weinmann; Washington’s Irrational Cuba Policy. World Policy Journal 1 March 2004; 21 (1): 22–31. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/07402775-2004-2005 Download citation file: Zotero Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search Books & JournalsAll JournalsWorld Policy Journal Search Advanced Search The text of this article is only available as a PDF. Copyright © 2004 World Policy Institute2004 Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.