Presidential Victory Research Articles

Joint Electoral Outcomes as Cues for Congressional Support of U. S. Presidents

Recently the concept of presidential coattails has been used as an explanatory variable in analyses of congressional voting on presidentially sponsored legislation. This study pursues this line of inquiry by measuring the impact of presidential electoral strength, relative to that of congressmen in their districts, upon an index of presidential support. Regression techniques are used to depict how much presidential support increases for every electoral percentage point by which a president surpasses a congressman in the latter's district for members of the 83rd, 85th, 87th, 89th, 91st, and 93rd Congresses. Findings of this research show that congressional support of presidentially sponsored legislation increased between one and thirteen percentage points for every percentage point by which the president exceeded congressmen in the six elections analyzed. The impact of relative presidential electoral strength upon presidential support among congressmen of the president's party was stronger: (1) after landslide presidential victories rather than more competitive elections; (2) among non-Southern Democrats rather than Southern Democrats under Democratic administrations; and (3) in safe districts rather than more electorally competitive districts. Further, this relationship was stronger among Republican senators under Democratic administrations, and House Democrats under Republican administrations, than among the other partisan combinations.

Bangladesh 1978: Search for a Political Party

WHAT BEGAN AS a speculation in 1977 became a reality in February 1978 when a political party called the Jatiyotabadi Ganatantrik Dal (JAGODAL) was organized, evidently with the blessings of President Ziaur Rahman. It was one of the twenty-one political parties approved by the martial law authorities in Bangladesh but JAGODAL's real distinction was the official blessings symbolized by its convenor, Vice-President Mr. Justice Abdus Sattar, and the executive body dominated by ten presidential advisors. It was felt for a' while that the new party would be formally led by Ziaur Rahman, who has been articulating the idea of a broad-based nationalist party. Bangladesh appeared to be returning to politicization as several other political parties, including the Awami League, recommenced organizational activities. On April 2, before any of the political parties showed any sizable strength, Ziaur Rahman ordered a presidential election to be held on June 3, 1978. It's not yet clear why Ziaur Rahman ordered a presidential election without even strengthening his newly formed JAGODAL, but several explanations may be offered for the sudden presidential election only a year after a spectacular victory in a referendum. Critics had questioned the validity of the 1977 referendum. Ziaur Rahman probably saw an ideal opportunity of another massive presidential victory before opposition political parties gained strength. It is quite possible that he wanted to strengthen his own political position before the proposed legislative elections scheduled for January 1979.

Elections in the City of Buenos Aires during the First Yrigoyen Administration: Social Class and Political Preferences

IN recent years a growing number of scholars have sought to analyze Argentine elections to determine the socioeconomic bases of political party support in that country. Many have focused on the post-World War II period, especially the dramatic presidential victory of Juan Peron in 1946.1 Others have studied the early part of the twentieth century and a few the late nineteenth century.2 An important contribution to these efforts was the the publication in 1968 of Darfo Canton's two-volume compilation of national presidential and congressional election results.3 Using Canton's data, social scientists have correlated election returns with a variety of information drawn from municipal, provincial, and national censuses. Although these censuses contain a wealth of information, they also pose several major problems. They appear irregularly, making the development of socioeconomic indicators over an extended period difficult. The categories employed and the completeness of coverage vary greatly from one census to another. Moreover, most census material describes general characteristics of voting districts, but not necessarily of the voters themselves.

The Emergence of a Two-Party System in Republican Philadelphia, 1924-1936

THE national political realignment of the 1920s and 1930s transformed Philadelphia. In 1924 Coolidge swept the city with 78 percent of the vote, not an atypical margin given that Republican majorities often reached 80 percent proportions and hundreds of voting divisions returned near unanimous ballots. All city and county offices had been Republican since the turn of the century except where statute required otherwise. The Democratic party was a kept minority, a subservient auxiliary of the dominant Republican organization, existing for and subsisting on minority patronage.1 In 1936 Franklin D. Roosevelt won Philadelphia by a 60 percent landslide, inaugurating a sequence of Democratic presidential victories that has not been broken since. The Republicans prevailed in city and county politics, but their monopoly grip on city hall was broken in 1933. The existence of a revitalized and independent Democratic party organization made Philadelphia politics after 1933 two party and competitive. Within the dominant Republican organization, a coup d'etat in 1934 overthrew a leadership that had controlled the party since 1916.2 Much of the discussion of the New Deal realignment has centered on an attempt to classify some single election contest as the critical one, where long-term political cleavages first took shape. The most popular thesis has been that of Samuel Lubell who contends that the unique appeal of Al Smith and the ethnic arousal that resulted from his campaign set the arena for American politics for the next several decades, marked the appearance of

Editors Make War: Southern Newspapers in the Secession Crisis

In early 1860 most Southern newspapers promoted Unionist sentiments for peace, but by 1861 they advocated secession and disunion, often calling for bloodshed. Using the editorials published in 196 newspapers during that pivotal year before the out-break of the Civil War, Donald E. Reynolds shows the evolution of the editors' viewpoints and explains how editors helped influence the traditionally conservative and nationalistic South to revolt and secede. Editors Make War is the first complete study of how Southern newspapers influenced the secession crisis in 1860, effectively outlining how editors played on their readers' racial fears and distrust of the North. Showing how newspaper coverage can affect its readers, this classic study illuminates such events as the nominating conventions, fires in Texas that were blamed on slaves and abolitionists, state elections in the North, Lincoln's presidential victory, failed attempts at compromise, the secession of the lower Southern states, the attack at Fort Sumter, and the Federal call for troops in April 1861.

The Ideologies of Progressive Education

On the surface, the thesis that progressive education was “the educational phase of American Progressivism writ large” appears valid; but when one examines the various stages in the development of progressive education it becomes more and more like a misleading generality. The thesis suggests, among other things, that progressive education was a unified movement that continued to give expression to the ideology of progressivism until the mid-nineteen-fifties. Even if one were to ignore the other serious problems raised by this thesis, it would still be necessary to explain how it was possible for the educational phase of the progressive movement to survive by some thirty-five years the parent reform movement that came to an untimely end in 1920 with the landslide presidential victory of Warren G. Harding. But there is a more serious difficulty with Lawrence Cremin's thesis that may make it unnecessary to explain the strange tenacity of the progressive educator. In The Transformation of the School, Cremin observed that during the thirties a paralyzing split developed within the movement when influential educationists reacted against the child-centered pedagogy, which had reached its apogee during the twenties, by seeking “to tie progressive education more closely to political Progressivism.” Simply stated, the question that must be answered is whether the ideology of social reform-minded educators like George S. Counts, Harold Rugg, John L. Childs, and William H. Kilpatrick, who were the influential educationists to whom Cremin is referring, can be identified with the ethos of progressivism, with its emphasis on economic and political individualism. And if it cannot, then it would appear that the progressive education movement encompassed at least two distinct and often conflicting ideologies, of which only one can be identified with the progressive movement.

Voting Statistics and Presidential Coattails

The coattail effect in presidential and congressional races was long supposed to show that the winning presidential candidate led his party to victory by adding votes to the ticket all along the line. The fact that the same party almost always won control of both houses of congress and usually also a majority of the governorships at stake at the time of a presidential victory made this a plausible theory.More recently, the sweeping nature of such an explanation has been challenged. The first criticism of the simple theory noted that even when a presidential candidate wins, congressional candidates in some districts lead the president. In these cases, presumably, the congressional candidates' coattails are more effective.A second criticism pointed to the paradox in the assumption that if a presidential candidate leads his party by a wide margin, he is an effective candidate for the party ticket. The greater the margin, presumably, the stronger are the presidential coattails. But large margins, on the contrary, must indicate that the presidential candidate has not been able to transfer all of his votes to the congressional ticket; and so it would seem that the attraction of his coattails is minimal if this margin is great. Thus the most significant symptom of the coattail process is straight ticket voting.

The Second Session of the Eightieth Congress

The second session of the Eightieth Congress was convened under unusual circumstances: the Republicans controlled the Congress, the Democrats the presidency and administration, and both the President and Congress faced a national election.In response to this situation, the majority party at times conducted itself in both houses as if a congressional and presidential Republican victory in the approaching election were a certainty; particular members of the Democratic party in each house were frequently outspoken in their opposition to electing President Truman as the next president; both parties performed on occasions as if bidding against each other for votes in the coming election; and a number of representatives and senators were concerned with the outcome at the national conventions. This condition was evidenced when the spokesman of the Senate Democrats, Senator Barkley, on the closing night just prior to the Republican convention had the following to say:“… I understand hope has been abandoned of getting a housing bill, but I have been told tonight that the Republican moguls in Philadelphia have sent word down here that we are not to adjourn until a housing bill is passed—just anything that has got a house in it.