Republican Presidential Research Articles

Forecasting the 2024 Republican Presidential Nomination: Can the Former Heavyweight Champ Win Another Title Shot?

Forecasting the 2024 Republican Presidential Nomination: Can the Former Heavyweight Champ Win Another Title Shot?

Immigrant Threat or Institutional Context? Examining Police Agency and County Context and the Implementation of the 287(g) Program

ABSTRACT During the early 2000s, the U.S. government began to partner with local law enforcement agencies for assistance with the enforcement of immigration laws. Participation in the voluntary 287(g) program by law enforcement agencies was an important early iteration of this new strategy. Although relatively few agencies adopted 287(g), its implementation was a critical turning point in the nation’s approach to immigration enforcement and has been linked to a wide range of negative consequences for Latinos, including higher levels of violent victimization, and decreases in police trust. This study advances knowledge about the factors associated with 287(g) program adoption during the late 2000s. We examined the role of agency ethnoracial diversity and fiscal capacity and several theoretically relevant indicators of the broader county context. Based on a sample of 880 law enforcement agencies located in 233 counties, rare event logistic regression models indicate that the strongest predictors of 287(g) adoption were the share of county population estimated to be undocumented immigrants, the degree of support for the Republican Presidential candidate, and the relative unemployment of Hispanic and non-Hispanic White residents. Overall, the results suggest that 287(g) was primarily a political response to concerns about the potential threats associated with undocumented immigration.

Trump Is Not a (Condorcet) Loser! Primary Voters’ Preferences and the 2016 Republican Presidential Nomination

ABSTRACTMany commentators argued that if elites and voters had coordinated on an alternative candidate, Donald Trump could have been defeated for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. This claim rests on the implicit assumption that Trump would have been defeated in a head-to-head contest against another candidate—that he was a Condorcet loser. Conventional pre-election polls, however, do not provide enough information about voters’ preferences to assess the plausibility of this claim. Relying on novel data to construct individuals’ complete preferences over the set of leading Republican candidates, we find that no other candidate strictly defeats Trump in pairwise majority-rule comparisons and—far from being a Condorcet loser—that Trump is a member of the majority-rule core. Our results question the plausibility of the coordination narrative because Trump’s support was wider than political observers believed: it came from a broad base of the Republican primary electorate rather than a small but intense minority.

Mortgage market credit conditions and U.S. Presidential elections

Voters punish incumbent Presidential candidates for contractions in the county-level supply of mortgage credit during market-wide contractions of credit, but do not reward them for expansions in mortgage credit supply in boom times. Our primary focus is the Presidential election of 2008, which followed an unprecedented swing from very generous mortgage underwriting standards to a severe contraction of mortgage credit. Voters responded to the credit crunch by shifting their support away from the Republican Presidential candidate in 2008. That shift was large and particularly pronounced in states that typically vote Republican, and in swing states. Without it McCain would have received half the votes needed in nine crucial swing states to reverse the outcome of the election. We extend our analysis to the Presidential elections from 1996 to 2012 and find that voters only react to contractions, not expansions, of credit, and reactions are similar for Democratic and Republican incumbent parties.

New quota-based apportionment methods: The allocation of delegates in the Republican Presidential Primary

We survey the apportionment methods used by the Republican Party in their 2012 and 2016 state presidential primaries, with a focus on the seven methods that are proportional. All of the proportional methods are quota-based, and all but one are new (or at least previously unstudied). After comparing the apportionment methods for three candidates using simplicial geometry, we evaluate how they differ in bias toward the top and bottom vote-getting candidates. We also compare the methods by how they distinguish among candidates in close elections. We use the bias comparisons to suggest which methods should be used at different junctures in the primary season. We discuss how these new methods were implemented in practice and summarize how successful these methods were in making the Republican delegate process more proportional.

“I Am the Law and Order Candidate”: A Content Analysis of Donald Trump’s Race-Baiting Dog Whistles in the 2016 Presidential Campaign

Though many in news media have accused Donald Trump of being racist or dog-whistling during the 2016 United States Presidential campaign, there has been little empirical analysis of Trump’s words. A content analysis of Donald Trump’s speeches as the Republican Presidential Nominee was conducted to search for race baiting dog whistles. The paper uses the content analytical method, which seeks alignment of message, messenger, and receiver; as such, analysis included not only Trump’s words but connection with extant research on his political persona and his supporters. Analysis showed alignment in the three areas, including consistent dog whistle usage in Trump’s speeches. Trump’s dog whistle usage also significantly exceeded that of recent Republican Presidential Nominees.

The Media and the 2016 Election (Presentation Slides)

The origins of this paper emanated from an interdisciplinary conference at the University of Houston that accompanied the 2016 Republican Presidential Debate that was held on campus. The paper was then revised for a presentation in Mexico City at the Matias Romero Institute in the summer of 2017. On August 6, 2018, the paper was presented at the SEALS Conference in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Attached are slides from that presentation. This author is very appreciative of the positive feedback received during these presentations. In examining this issue, the paper outlines the power imbalance that existed between the traditional media and the presidential candidates during the Republican primaries as well as during the general election. This power imbalance provided Candidate Trump with an unprecedented amount of “earned” media coverage. This was partly due to his celebrity status, which the traditional media commodified through its coverage fueling their increased advertising rates. During the 2016 election, the traditional media experienced unprecedented viewership during the Republican debates and news coverage of Candidate Trump. Candidate Trump’s celebrity status and nontraditional approach to the election campaign fueled a cycle of the media disproportionately covering Candidate Trump’s campaign in comparison to his Republican rivals in the primaries and Candidate Clinton’s in the general election. Moreover, Candidate Trump skillfully used Twitter and Facebook and used these social media resources more often than his Republican rivals in the Republican primaries and against Candidate Clinton in the general election. This allowed the Trump campaign to earn even more coverage from traditional media allowing him to win the Republican nomination and the general election by raising and spending less money than his respective rivals in those contests. In contrast, in the general election, even though Candidate Clinton raised more campaign money than Candidate Trump, Candidate Trump had the significant advantage in earned media. Moreover, unlike Candidate Trump, Candidate Clinton relied more on spending on traditional media advertising than social media. Social media like Facebook and Twitter experienced outside and foreign influence. Facebook acknowledged that “fake news” was distributed on its network in its feed to subscribers. There were also dark advertising to targeted slivers of the population based on messages that either would make the recipients of the ads less likely to vote or more likely. The most troubling aspect about these dark social media ads is that because they were “dark,” there was no opportunity for a rival campaign to counter the ads’ message. After the 2016 election, Facebook acknowledged the manipulation of its network and instituted some measures to self- regulate. Given that so many more members of the voting public get their news from personalized social media streams, these fundamental changes in the media landscape and their use raise the issue of whether self-regulation by the social media companies is sufficient to provide a level playing field among presidential candidates and to prevent outside foreign influence.

“Not so Fine”: Governor John Fine and the 1952 Republican Presidential Nominating Struggle in Pennsylvania

ABSTRACT With the Korean War stalemated, inflation rising, and stories of corruption in the Truman White House on newspaper front pages, Republicans believed their nominee for president in 1952 was well positioned to capture the White House for the first time since 1928. But who would carry the Republican banner? In the dramatic contest between Ohio senator Robert A. Taft and General Dwight D. Eisenhower, Pennsylvania governor John Fine intended to play a significant, perhaps even a kingmaker, role. This article traces Fine's decision to withhold an endorsement of either candidate until the last possible moment at the Republican National Convention and its impact. As events played out, he waited too long, thereby alienating leaders from the two rival candidates' camps and negating his influence. Worse for Fine, his inability to gain recognition from the convention chair to put Eisenhower over the top as the party nominee played out in full view of television cameras. Fine returned to Harrisburg as a failed kingmaker. His political misadventure blighted his prospects for a position in the Eisenhower administration or further elective office and political influence in Pennsylvania.

An Analysis of the 2016 U.S. Republican Presidential Primary Election

An Analysis of the 2016 U.S. Republican Presidential Primary Election

The Duty to Disobey: The Law of Conscience and Compliance in Armed Conflict

In an era of perpetual war, service members are required to follow orders with significant legal and moral consequences. Several high-profile cases, however, call into question the limits of the soldier’s duty. In 2006, First Lieutenant Ehren Watada refused to deploy to Iraq because of legal and moral objections to the underlying conflict. More recently, Captain Nathan Smith sued President Obama in federal court, claiming the conflict against the Islamic State terrorist organization was not properly authorized by Congress. Since early 2016, then Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump made multiple proposals to combat terrorism by targeting civilians and committing torture. If confronted with such orders, under what circumstances do service members have a duty to disobey? This article examines the obligations of service members, focusing on Lieutenant Watada, Captain Smith, and others like them who objected to specific armed conflicts on legal and moral grounds. Specifically, this article seeks to answer whether state adherence to the jus ad bellum and jus in bello is condition precedent for soldiers’ obedience to orders. A preliminary examination of these issues reveals that soldiers have a legal obligation to disobey unlawful orders during armed conflict (e.g., targeting civilians, torture), but there is no equivalent legal obligation to disobey orders to deploy in support of a war that is—from the soldier’s perspective — unlawful. The state is also interested in avoiding widespread disobedience. A behavioral studies approach suggests that compliance can best be achieved through internalization of norms, opportunities for constructive dissent, and stricter adherence to the jus ad bellum. This article will appeal to national security practitioners, decision makers, and scholars. The relevance to national security is evident by seeking methods to gain greater compliance from soldiers and more prudent strategic level decisions regarding armed conflict. More broadly, the examination of compliance theory to individual behavior is applicable to multiple disciplines and any large organization. The examination of the soldier’s obedience is particularly timely when the United States is engaged in what some describe as a forever war.

Definitely Not Moralistic: State Political Culture and Support for Donald Trump in the Race for the 2016 Republican Presidential Nomination

ABSTRACTThis study analyzes the important role state political culture played in the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Donald Trump appealed to demographically distinct types of voters in the 2016 Republican presidential primaries and caucuses that varied considerably from previous Republican presidential nominees. Relative to the demographics of the primary electorates, however, this study finds that state political culture played an outsized role in determining Donald Trump’s relative level of support in a particular state. When state demographics are utilized in ordinary least squares regression models as independent variables with state partisanship and Daniel Elazar’s state political culture typology, political culture proves to be a significant determinant of the level of support given to Trump in a state. States that are characterized by a more moralistic political culture are considerably more likely to have given Trump a lower share of the vote while voters in states that are characterized by a more traditionalistic or individualistic culture were more likely to support Trump.

Re-Thinking Executive Control of and Accountability for the Agency

The organizational of many western governments has undergone dramatic structural and procedural changes over the past century. A large portion of public administration previously done by departments within a more centralized structure of government has been shifted to administrative units - often referred to as ‘agencies’ - that fall outside the constitutional core - an agencified model. This article investigates historical contexts and legal development of these changes and illuminates how agencification has altered the balance between executive control powers and executive accountability obligations. It examines how the organisational changes have been addressed in both the Responsible Government models of the UK, Canada and Australia, and the Republican Presidential model of the USA. The article identifies a separation of accountability and control by the executive through its use of the agency and draws conclusions with implications for constitutional law, political theory and practice.

The Effect of Religion on Candidate Preference in the 2008 and 2012 Republican Presidential Primaries.

Thanks to the work of politics and religion scholars, we now know a lot about the relationship between religion and voting in American presidential general elections. However, we know less about the influence of religion on individual vote choice in presidential primaries. This article fills that gap by exploring the relationship between religion and candidate preference in the 2008 and 2012 Republican primaries. Using pre-Super Tuesday surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center, I find that the Republican candidate who most explicitly appealed to religious voters (Mike Huckabee in 2008 and Rick Santorum in 2012) was the preferred candidate of Republican respondents who attended religious services at the highest levels, and that as attendance increased, so did the likelihood of preferring that candidate. I also find that identification as a born again Christian mattered to candidate preference. Specifically, born again Christians were more likely than non-born again Christians to prefer Huckabee to Mitt Romney, John McCain and Ron Paul in 2008, and Santorum to Romney in 2012. Although ideology was not the primary subject of this article, I find that ideology was also a statistically significant predictor of Republican candidate preference in both 2008 and 2012. This robust finding reinforces scholars’ prior work on the importance of ideology in explaining presidential primary vote choice. The overall findings of the paper provide evidence that religion variables can add to our understanding of why voters prefer one candidate over another in presidential primaries.

Mortgage Market Credit Conditions and U.S. Presidential Elections

Voters punish incumbent Presidential candidates for contractions in the local (county-level) supply of mortgage credit during market-wide contractions of credit, but they do not reward them for expansions in mortgage credit supply in boom times. Our primary focus is the Presidential election of 2008, which followed an unprecedented swing from very generous mortgage underwriting standards to a severe contraction of mortgage credit. Voters responded to the credit crunch by shifting their support away from the Republican Presidential candidate in 2008. That shift was particularly pronounced in states that typically vote Republican, and in swing states. The magnitude of the effect is large. If the supply of mortgage credit had not contracted from 2004 to 2008, McCain would have received half the votes needed in nine crucial swing states to reverse the outcome of the election. The effect on voting in these swing states from local contractions in mortgage credit supply was five times as important as the increase in the unemployment rate; if unemployment had not increased from 2004 to 2008, that improvement in local labor markets would only have given McCain only 9% of the votes needed to win the nine crucial swing states. We extend our analysis to the Presidential elections from 1996 to 2012 and find that voters’ reactions are similar for Democratic and Republican incumbent parties, but different during booms and busts of mortgage credit. These asymmetric results indicate that voters react strongly and negatively to credit supply contraction; however, organized political bargaining (the “smoke-filled room channel”) rather than voting was the primary vehicle for rewarding politicians for supporting government subsidies for mortgage risk during booms.

The problems of populism: celebrity politics and citizenship

In contrast to approaches that frame the ‘populism’ of celebrity politics as a ‘dumbing down’ of politics, this article draws on an approach that seeks to understand the social conditions, political rationalities, and organizational networks that shape populist mobilisations. In light of this approach, it considers two case studies of contemporary populist politics from the US and Britain, both of which implicated celebrities (albeit in notably different ways): Bruce Springsteen’s response to the ‘Bridgegate’ scandal surrounding New Jersey Governor and aspirational Republican Presidential candidate Chris Christie in 2013; and the interventions of comedian and actor Russell Brand in the lead-up to the 2015 British general election. In addressing ‘the problems of populism’, it highlights two issues: firstly, the fraught and risky nature of market-oriented celebrity politics that appeal to the affective investments of consumer-citizens; and secondly, the necessarily reductive nature of populism itself.

Analysis of HPV Vaccine Information on Influential Blog Sites: A Snapshot Amid the 2011 Republican Presidential Primary Debates

The human papillomavirus (HPV) is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. Two vaccines have been approved to protect against the virus. Politicians have pushed for legislation to increase HPV vaccination rates and stop the spread of this cancer-causing disease. During the Republican presidential primary of 2011, HPV vaccination mandates, which require young girls entering the 6th grade to receive the vaccine, became a controversial issue. This study examined 167 unique blog posts on influential blog sites, in the wake of increased political attention to the issue of HPV vaccination mandates, to determine how the HPV vaccine is discussed online. Our analysis revealed significant differences in presentation of health information and general tone toward the vaccine between blog entries posted on different types of sites. Blog posts on political and general news sites were more negative toward the HPV vaccine than posts on health and science sites. On the issue of HPV vaccination mandates, bloggers seemed deeply divided, no matter the type of site. However, political and general news sites were more likely to highlight conspiracies between the government and vaccine manufacturers. Results show there is a considerable amount of debate regarding the HPV vaccine and HPV vaccination mandates in the blogosphere. Implications of the findings for vaccine risk communication are discussed.

Polls and Elections: Leviathan's Reach? The Impact of Political Consultants on the Outcomes of the 2012 Republican Presidential Primaries and Caucuses

Recent scholarship into American political parties argues that the power to nominate presidential candidates has not entirely devolved from the party to voters but retains party influence via a network of allied actors including political consultants. Once party elites coalesce around a preferred candidate, primary voters tend to comply with their will. However, scholarship has not yet shown whether consultants help produce this effect. Consultants, even those with close contractual ties to the party organization, do not behave as this view expects, and they worked for several GOP candidates in 2012, enhancing intraparty competition rather than rallying around the front‐runner.

Offline: What makes health an election issue?

Offline: What makes health an election issue?

Momentum and Media in the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination

This article uses Aldrich's (2009) formula to devise “momentum scores” that allow us to track momentum for the major candidates in the 2012 Republican presidential nomination throughout the primary season. Though Mitt Romney had a major advantage in fundraising and endorsements before the primaries began, his biggest gains in momentum came late in the primary season. We compare momentum changes to media mentions and tone of coverage derived from content analysis of major newspapers. Though media content corresponds with changes in momentum for each candidate, the media response to momentum for the front‐runner is weaker compared with his competitors.

Soviet Russia, Creator of the PLO and Inventor of the Palestinian People

Who, What, When, Where, Why and How? A Former Republican Presidential Candidate referred to the so called "Palestinian People" as an "invented people." But he left open who invented them, how it did so, when and where it did it, and why. This article fills in the heretofore blank news lead paragraph.