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The Center for Political Studies' 1972 presidential election survey was used to investigate the role that issue voting, ideology, candidate assessments, and partisan defections played in the Republican landslide of that year. An analysis of issue attitudes revealed a deep policy schism among the Democrats: McGovern supporters preferred liberal policy alternatives while Nixon Democrats favored distinctly conservative issue positions. Interitem correlations among various issues and a liberal-conservative scale showed the voters to have substantial attitude consistency. A normal-vote analysis of these issues demonstrated that the Vietnam war and social issue domains contributed more significantly to the explanation of the vote than did cultural or economic issues. The candidates were clearly perceived as having taken opposing issue positions, with Nixon's position the more preferred by a majority of the population. A proximity measure, computed as the discrepancy between perceived candidate issue position and the voter's policy preference, proved to be a better predictor of the vote decision than the voter's own issue position taken alone. Analyses of candidate assessments showed that McGovern was not a personally appealing candidate—a factor that allowed issue differences to gain maximal importance. The sharp intraparty polarization of Democrats over policy alternatives, a change in the educational composition of the electorate, a decrease in partisan identification, and a growth in partisan defection combined to suppress the impact of party identification as a determinant of the vote decision. It was concluded that the 1972 presidential race could be labeled "ideological" by comparison with past elections.

John F. Kennedy's narrow popular vote margin in 1960 has already insured this presidential election a classic position in the roll call of close American elections. Whatever more substantial judgments historical perspective may bring, we can be sure that the 1960 election will do heavy duty in demonstrations to a reluctant public that after all is said and done, every vote does count. And the margin translated into "votes per precinct" will become standard fare in exhortations to party workers that no stone be left unturned.The 1960 election is a classic as well in the license it allows for "explanations" of the final outcome. Any event or campaign strategem that might plausibly have changed the thinnest sprinkling of votes across the nation may, more persuasively than is usual, be called "critical." Viewed in this manner, the 1960 presidential election hung on such a manifold of factors that reasonable men might despair of cataloguing them.Nevertheless, it is possible to put together an account of the election in terms of the broadest currents influencing the American electorate in 1960. We speak of the gross lines of motivation which gave the election its unique shape, motivations involving millions rather than thousands of votes. Analysis of these broad currents is not intended to explain the hairline differences in popular vote, state by state, which edged the balance in favor of Kennedy rather than Nixon. But it can indicate quite clearly the broad forces which reduced the popular vote to a virtual stalemate, rather than any of the other reasonable outcomes between a 60-40 or a 40–60 vote division.

Without much question, the third-party movement of George C. Wallace constituted the most unusual feature of the 1968 presidential election. While this movement failed by a substantial margin in its audacious attempt to throw the presidential contest into the House of Representatives, in any other terms it was a striking success. It represented the first noteworthy intrusion on a two-party election in twenty years. The Wallace ticket drew a larger proportion of the popular vote than any third presidential slate since 1924, and a greater proportion of electoral votes than any such movement for more than a century, back to the curiously divided election of 1860. Indeed, the spectre of an electoral college stalemate loomed sufficiently large that serious efforts at reform have since taken root.At the same time, the Wallace candidacy was but one more dramatic addition to an unusually crowded rostrum of contenders, who throughout the spring season of primary elections were entering and leaving the lists under circumstances that ranged from the comic through the astonishing to the starkly tragic. Six months before the nominating conventions, Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon had been the expected 1968 protagonists, with some greater degree of uncertainty, as usual, within the ranks of the party out of power. The nominating process for the Republicans followed the most-probable script rather closely, with the only excitement being provided by the spectacle of Governors Romney and Rockefeller proceeding as through revolving doors in an ineffectual set of moves aimed at providing a Republican alternative to the Nixon candidacy. Where things were supposed to be most routine on the Democratic side, however, surprises were legion, including the early enthusiasm for Eugene McCarthy, President Johnson's shocking announcement that he would not run, the assassination of Robert Kennedy in the flush of his first electoral successes, and the dark turmoil in and around the Chicago nominating convention, with new figures like Senators George McGovern and Edward Kennedy coming into focus as challengers to the heir apparent, Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

Übungsteildatensatz zum Workbook "Political Participation".

Themen: Selbsteinschätzung der Klassenzugehörigkeit; soziale Herkunft;
Grad der Parteiidentifikation; perzipierte Einflussmöglichkeit auf die
Regierung; politisches Interesse; politisches Interesse des Vaters;
Teilnahme an Wahlveranstaltungen; Wahlbeteiligung bei der letzten Wahl;
Mediennutzung zur politischen Meinungsbildung; Beurteilung der eigenen
wirtschaftlichen Situation; wichtigste politische Themen; politische
Einstellung; eigene Parteimitgliedschaft; Parteimitgliedschaft der
Eltern während der eigenen Kindheit.

Demographie: Alter; Geschlecht; Familienstand; Konfession;
Kirchgangshäufigkeit; Schulbildung; Beruf; berufliche Position;
Berufstätigkeit; Charakteristika des Haushaltsvorstands;
Urbanisierungsgrad; Gewerkschaftsmitgliedschaft; Ortsansässigkeit;
regionale Herkunft; Beruf und berufliche Position des Vaters während der
eigenen Kindheit.

Übungsteildatensatz zum Workbook "Political Participation".

Themen: Selbsteinschätzung der Klassenzugehörigkeit; Grad der
Parteiidentifikation; perzipierte Einflussmöglichkeit auf die Regierung;
Interesse am Wahlkampf; Interesse am Wahlausgang; politisches Interesse
des Vaters während der eigenen Kindheit; Teilnahme an
Wahlveranstaltungen; eigene Spenden; Wahlbeteiligung bei der letzten
Wahl; regionale Herkunft; wahrgenommene Unterschiede zwischen den
Parteien; Mediennutzung zur politischen Meinungsbildung; Parteipräferenz
der Eltern; Beurteilung der eigenen wirtschaftlichen Situation;
wichtigste politische Themen.

Demographie: Alter; Geschlecht; Familienstand; Konfession;
Kirchgangshäufigkeit; Schulbildung; Wohnortgröße;
Gewerkschaftsmitgliedschaft; Ortsansässigkeit; Berufstätigkeit; Anzahl
der Mitgliedschaften und Ämter; Aufwachsen in der Stadt oder auf dem
Land; Beruf; Beruf des Vaters; soziale Herkunft;.