Super Tuesday Research Articles

Super Tuesday: Regional Politics and Presidential Primaries.

Super Tuesday 1988 was the first successful attempt to get several states in one region to hold their presidential primaries on the same day. Its success--or lack thereof--will affect the way presidents are elected for many years to come. Reaching beyond Super Tuesday and the nominations of George Bush and Michael Dukakis, Barbara Norrander's book presents the nation's first regional primary as the latest chapter in the ever-changing system through which U.S. political parties choose their presidential candidates. Norrander's research details how changes in technology, candidate and media strategies, and historical circumstances have influenced recent presidential nominations and how they set the stages for the South's primary in 1988. Super Tuesday: Regional Politics and Presidential Primaries emerges as an authoritative source not only on Super Tuesday but on many other aspects of presidential nominations. This book demonstrates that much of current conventional wisdom about presidential nominations is wrong. Norrander traces candidate strategies from 1976 to 1988 and calculates turnout rates from 1960 to 1988. She also examines the composition of the Super Tuesday electorate with respect both to preconceived notions of who participates in presidential primaries and to deliberate attempts by the Democratic and Republican parties to manipulate voter turnout in the South's regional primary. Her analysis of the timing and process of nomination victories from 1976 to 1988 emphasizes the importance of the overlooked role of candidate attrition over candidate momentum. Of special interest to political scientists--and to political observers--concerned with parties, elections, and votingbehavior, Norrander's book will reshape the examination of presidential contests in 1992 and beyond.

The Distribution of News Coverage in Presidential Primaries

News coverage is a critical component of modern presidential nomination campaigns. In this study, the geographic distribution of news coverage during several such campaigns is analyzed. Controlling for the size of the state delegation and other factors, contests that are part of a regional primary receive less coverage than contests that are not. As an illustration, it is shown that the southern states involved in Super Tuesday, 1988 received less coverage than would normally be expected considering the early date and large number of delegates at stake.

Nominating the President. Edited by Emmett H. BuellJr., and Lee Sigelman. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991. 300p. $42.95 cloth, $18.95 paper. - Super Tuesday: Regional Politics and Presidential Primaries. By Barbara Norrander. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1992, 239p. $29.00.

Nominating the President. Edited by Emmett H. BuellJr., and Lee Sigelman. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1991. 300p. $42.95 cloth, $18.95 paper. - Super Tuesday: Regional Politics and Presidential Primaries. By Barbara Norrander. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1992, 239p. $29.00.

Super Tuesday: regional politics & presidential primaries

Super Tuesday: regional politics & presidential primaries

“Sophisticated” Voting in the 1988 Presidential Primaries

Voters in multicandidate contests may confront circumstances under which it is in their interest to vote for a second- or even lower-ranked candidate. The U.S. electoral system, typically offering a choice between only two major contenders, rarely presents opportunities for this “sophisticated” voting. In presidential primaries, however, many plausible candidates may compete. We investigate the presence of sophisticated voting in the 1988 presidential primaries, using data from the National Election Study's Super Tuesday survey. We examine patterns of voting types based on ordinal measures of preferences among candidates and assessments of their chances of winning their party's nomination and estimate several models of choice, testing the multicandidate calculus of voting. Among both Republicans and Democrats, respondents' choices were consistent with the calculus of voting and thus with sophisticated voting.

The Building of a Republican Regional Base in the South The Elephant Crosses the Mason-Dixon Line

Changes in party identification are examined from 1952 to 1988, with a special emphasis on the findings from the 1988 CPS Super Tuesday Study. It is found that in 1988 Republicans clearly outnumbered Democrats among southern whites for the first time ever. Demographic patterns of partisanship in 1988 are compared to those from the 1950s. Most important is the relationship which now exists between age and party identification. Republicans now have a 29 percent lead over the Democrats among southern whites under 30 years of age. While firm black support of the Democratic party should prevent the South from becoming as solidly Republican as it once was Democratic, there is good reason to expect further Republican gains in the South throughout the remainder of the twentieth century. The 1988 election of George Bush marked the second time in a row that the South voted 4 percent above the national average for the Republican presidential ticket. Just as the Democrats started every presidential campaign during the New Deal with the head start of having the South locked up, it now appears that the Republicans enjoy the strategic benefits of having a strong regional base. If the Republicans can count on winning most of the South's electoral votes, as well as those of the Mountain West (see Galderisi et al. 1987), they need only concentrate on winning a few of the largest states to win a presidential election. Documenting how the Democratic South became the Republican South is therefore crucial to understanding how the Republicans, once accustomed to losing presidential elections, have now become the steady favorite. MARTIN P. WATTENBERG iS professor of political science at the University of California, Irvine. The data presented in this article are from the American National Election Studies, 1952-88, and were provided by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and

Comparing Predictors of the Likelihood of Voting in a Primary and a General Election

A before-after telephone interview design at the time of the “super Tuesday” primary in March 1988 finds that political interest accounts for 17% of the variance in predicting a primary vote, while reading newspapers predicts a similar amount of variance in the general election vote. A total of 451 randomly-selected voters in the Richmond, Virginia, area were interviewed. Primary election voters tend to have more political interest and education than do voters in a general election; primary voters are an important subset of American voters.

Strategy and choice in the 1988 presidential primaries

In recent years, thinking about the American Presidential primaries has been dominated by the image of Carter's victory in 1976. Conventional widsom in the eighties has advised presidential candidates to focus on the early contests in Iowa and New Hampshire, and to at least match, or better yet, exceed the expectations that the press, pollsters, and pundits have for them in those states. The successful campaign, it was thought, had to force the competition out by the end of March in order to lock up the nomination before the convention. 1 This common wisdom — the so-called ‘momentum theory’ — will now have to be revised as a result of what happened in the 1988 primaries. While one candidate from each party did eventually emerge victorious in 1988, no one followed the Carter script as closely as expected. The Democratic race was not clearly resolved until Dukakis managed consecutive victories over Jackson in Wisconsin (5 April), New York (19 April) and Pennsylvania (26 April). On the Republican side, even though the race was over after Super Tuesday, the conventional ‘momentum’ story was still married by the odd — and in the end, meaningless — outcome in Iowa Republican caucuses. Bush exceeded expectations in Iowa, but in a negative direction, and both Dole and Robertson were unable to convert their successes into any advantage in New Hampshire and the South.

Extending: The Structure of Metaphor

Extended metaphors are as common in everyday discourse as they are in literature. On 1984 CBS late report on Super Tuesday's democratic primaries, Dan Rather did not just say that Gary Hart's campaign was moving like fast train, he added that Mondale's was still chugging along and that McGovern's was a cut-loose caboose .2 In this same report, Walter Mondale gloated about his wins in Georgia and Alabama, saying

Super Tuesday 1988: Regional Results and National Implications

Fourteen southern and border states established a same-day presidential primary on 8 March 1988. This analysis shows that this Super Tuesday, in several senses, was less than super. The results turned out to be less satisfying than its Democratic founders preferred but less upsetting than its critics anticipated. Despite Super Tuesday, Iowa and New Hampshire remained dominant in the 1988 presidential primaries. Although voter turnout increased slightly over 1984 and the results contributed mightily toward settling the nomination in the Republican party, Super Tuesday neither settled the Democratic nomination nor gave meaningful momentum to the more moderate Democratic candidates.

Super Tuesday 1988: Regional Results and National Implications

Super Tuesday 1988: Regional Results and National Implications

Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process, by L. Sandy Maisel

Parties and Elections in America: The Electoral Process, <i>by L. Sandy Maisel</i>

Historic Moments

Comments on the day after Super Tuesday by John Lewis, Georgia Congressman and former SNCC leader, highlight one aspect of the historic moments through which we are living: To me, it is unbelievable, extraordinary to see the distance we have come. If someone had told me 23 years ago when we walked across the bridge [in Selma, Alabama]—I couldn't register and vote in Alabama; my mother and father couldn't vote in I965—if someone had told me I would have the opportunity to vote for a black man for President, I would have said, "You're out of your mind." It was not a victory just for Jesse. It was the victory of a cause and a movement. (New York Times, March 10, 1988)This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

Language Use and Political Environments in Media Coverage of ‘Super Tuesday’

Language Use and Political Environments in Media Coverage of ‘Super Tuesday’

Young vs. Old in 1984: Generations and Life Stages in Presidential Nomination Politics

Amidst changing voter preferences and unexpected volatility in candidate fortunes, the 1984 contest for the Democratic presidential nomination contained at least one constant. From Iowa and New Hampshire through “Super Tuesday” and the middle round in big industrial states to the early June finale, voter preferences among the major contenders for the Democratic nomination diverged sharply by age.Gary Hart enjoyed his greatest support among young voters, while Walter Mondale's strength was drawn from older voters, especially those over 65. The appeal of Jesse Jackson varied by age as well. Young blacks flocked to the Jackson banner. Older blacks, perhaps no less excited by the presence of an attractive black candidate for president, were more reluctant to follow, giving a greater share of their vote than did young blacks to Walter Mondale. Not since the protest candidacies of McCarthy and Kennedy in 1968 or the more successful insurgency of McGovern in 1972 has so much attention been paid to the contrasting responses of Americans of different ages to candidates for the presidency.Popular accounts of the relationship of age to presidential choice in 1984 have treated these differences as indicative of generational conflict. The epicenter of the Hart constituency is located in the “Vietnam” or “baby boom” generation, while Mondale's generational home base has been placed among voters who came of age politically during the New Deal. The implication is that Mondale represented vestiges of the old Democratic New Deal coalition, whereas Hart was the candidate of Americans for whom the New Deal is only an historical footnote. Simply put, the 1984 Democratic battle commonly has been described as pitting the old coalition against the new ideas.

Young vs. Old in 1984: Generations and Life Stages in Presidential Nomination Politics

Amidst changing voter preferences and unexpected volatility in candidate fortunes, the 1984 contest for the Democratic presidential nomination contained at least one constant. From Iowa and New Hampshire through “Super Tuesday” and the middle round in big industrial states to the early June finale, voter preferences among the major contenders for the Democratic nomination diverged sharply by age.Gary Hart enjoyed his greatest support among young voters, while Walter Mondale's strength was drawn from older voters, especially those over 65. The appeal of Jesse Jackson varied by age as well. Young blacks flocked to the Jackson banner. Older blacks, perhaps no less excited by the presence of an attractive black candidate for president, were more reluctant to follow, giving a greater share of their vote than did young blacks to Walter Mondale. Not since the protest candidacies of McCarthy and Kennedy in 1968 or the more successful insurgency of McGovern in 1972 has so much attention been paid to the contrasting responses of Americans of different ages to candidates for the presidency.Popular accounts of the relationship of age to presidential choice in 1984 have treated these differences as indicative of generational conflict. The epicenter of the Hart constituency is located in the “Vietnam” or “baby boom” generation, while Mondale's generational home base has been placed among voters who came of age politically during the New Deal. The implication is that Mondale represented vestiges of the old Democratic New Deal coalition, whereas Hart was the candidate of Americans for whom the New Deal is only an historical footnote. Simply put, the 1984 Democratic battle commonly has been described as pitting the old coalition against the new ideas.

Young vs. Old in 1984: Generations and Life Stages in Presidential Nomination Politics

Amidst changing voter preferences and unexpected volatility in candidate fortunes, the 1984 contest for the Democratic presidential nomination contained at least one constant. From Iowa and New Hampshire through “Super Tuesday” and the middle round in big industrial states to the early June finale, voter preferences among the major contenders for the Democratic nomination diverged sharply by age.Gary Hart enjoyed his greatest support among young voters, while Walter Mondale's strength was drawn from older voters, especially those over 65. The appeal of Jesse Jackson varied by age as well. Young blacks flocked to the Jackson banner. Older blacks, perhaps no less excited by the presence of an attractive black candidate for president, were more reluctant to follow, giving a greater share of their vote than did young blacks to Walter Mondale. Not since the protest candidacies of McCarthy and Kennedy in 1968 or the more successful insurgency of McGovern in 1972 has so much attention been paid to the contrasting responses of Americans of different ages to candidates for the presidency.Popular accounts of the relationship of age to presidential choice in 1984 have treated these differences as indicative of generational conflict. The epicenter of the Hart constituency is located in the “Vietnam” or “baby boom” generation, while Mondale's generational home base has been placed among voters who came of age politically during the New Deal. The implication is that Mondale represented vestiges of the old Democratic New Deal coalition, whereas Hart was the candidate of Americans for whom the New Deal is only an historical footnote. Simply put, the 1984 Democratic battle commonly has been described as pitting the old coalition against the new ideas.