Suchergebnisse

Polls taken in late 1980 & 1984 varied by up to 20 points in the spread reported between Democratic & Republican identifiers. Three systematic & sizable differences across polls were found: polls that sample only voters, polls that emphasize "today" or the present in their question wording, & polls that are taken close to election day tend to favor the party currently advantaged in the presidential race. 2 Tables, 3 References. AA

Heading into the 2002 elections, Georgia was the only state that had not elected a Republican governor, and the state legislature continued to be held by Democrats. Organizationally, on the other hand, both parties had made dramatic strides since the 1970s, when they had a minimal presence at the local level. The decade of the 1990s brought diverging trends to the two parties. The county chairs we surveyed in 2001 tended to be more active in performing campaign activities than respondents from ten years before. Republican chairs overwhelmingly thought their organizations were getting stronger, though, while Democrats were more pessimistic about their parties. The parties became more ideologically extreme between 1991 and 2001. It remains to be seen whether the Republican trend in grassroots activity will translate into electoral success.

Heading into the 2002 elections, GA was the only state that had not elected a Republican governor, & the state legislature continued to be held by Democrats. Organizationally, on the other hand, both parties had made dramatic strides since the 1970s, when they had a minimal presence at the local level. The decade of the 1990s brought diverging trends to the two parties. The county chairs we surveyed in 2001 tended to be more active in performing campaign activities than respondents from 10 years before. Republican chairs overwhelmingly thought their organizations were getting stronger, though, while Democrats were more pessimistic about their parties. The parties became more ideologically extreme between 1991 & 2001. It remains to be seen whether the Republican trend in grassroots activity will translate into electoral success. 6 Tables, 22 References. Adapted from the source document.

The conventional wisdom of national elections suggests that there are electoral costs associated with opposing declarations of war. However, an alternative literature contends that the negative electoral consequences of waging war may be borne by legislators who supported war, especially those members of the majority party. The authors test this assumption by examining the electoral consequences of supporting or opposing the declarations of war for the Mexican-American War, World War I, and the 1991 resolution to use force in the Persian Gulf. The results of their analysis of House elections indicate that although electoral costs were borne for opposing World War I, legislators who dissented often preselected themselves out of Congress through retirement or pursuit of other office. No evidence of electoral costs is evident in the wake of the Persian Gulf War, due in part to the influence of intervening events during the long period between the end of the war and the 1992 election.

Examines the 2008 Senate race in NC between incumbent Elizabeth Dole & challenger Kay Hagan, focusing on factors that caused this supposedly "safe" Republican seat to be lost to the Democrats. The shifting electoral & demographic environment in NC is analyzed, noting how the immigration of non-Southerners into the state is creating changes in the partisan electoral environment & returning the state from "red" to "blue." Local & national economic & political factors that favored the Democratic challenger in NC are identified, along with campaign strategies & key issues that shaped the electoral outcome. H. Hyatt Stewart

At the start of the 2008 election cycle, not many observers or analysts would have predicted that Senator Elizabeth Dole would lose her seat. Indeed, in their January 2008 analysis of U.S. Senate races, the non-partisan Cook Political Report rated Dole's seat "solid Republican." However, the dynamics in North Carolina began to change and Dole was on the long list of Republicans who had the potential to lose; by May the race had shifted to the "likely Republican" category, by the end of summer Dole's seat was classified as "lean Republican," and in the middle of the fall campaign it was judged as a "toss up." This article explores the contest between Elizabeth Dole and Kay Hagan by tracing the factors that allowed this apparently "safe" Republican seat to be captured by Democrats in 2008. While we discuss a number of factors that help to explain Hagan's victory, we suggest that a changing partisan electoral environment resulting from the immigration of non-Southerners to the state not only favored this outcome, but may auger well for the Democratic Party in the future. In other words, a state that had shifted red during the past several decades may be reverting back to blue.