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How do campaigns decide what issues to emphasize for voters? According to most studies, campaigns rely on factors outside of their control—issue salience, party issue ownership, and district ideology. In this article, I argue that campaign messages are designed primarily based on the candidate. I examine the issue content of campaign advertisements from U.S. House and Senate campaigns from 2000 to 2004 and develop a measure that determines if candidates have developed a reputation on a particular issue. When candidates have developed such a reputation, their campaign is more likely to highlight that issue to voters than campaigns whose candidate has not developed such a reputation. This relationship is consistent across most issues and across two different measures of a campaign's issue agenda.

Sociologists have identified an emerging new ethnic population of "unhyphenated Americans," those whites who claim an "American" ancestry, or none at all. This article measures the voting habits of these individuals in the 2010 elections. Research has shown that Barack Obama's vote share suffered in the 2008 election in regions where these voters are concentrated. This paper extends that analysis to the 2010 midterm elections. I find that in districts where unhyphenated Americans are concentrated, Democratic candidates suffered reduced vote share and chances of victory. These findings show the importance of identity politics among white voters and raise further questions about the role of ethnicity and voting.

Prior to the 2003 California recall election, pundits and academics pondered how a host of factors—including the historic nature of the election and the unusual cast of characters on the ballot—would influence voter turnout. Here, we examine two questions to shed some light on the turnout dynamics of the election: How was the recall electorate different from its 2002 counterpart, and what explains the 10% increase in registered voter turnout compared to 2002? Using the statewide voter file, we find the recall produced a younger, less partisan, and less politically experienced electorate. Citizens who stayed home in 2002 but cast ballots in 2003 tended to be intermittent voters. Media attention appears to have helped boost turnout, confirming in a new context other studies that find that lowering the costs of voting affects most strongly those citizens with demographic characteristics somewhere between habitual voters and hard-core and nonvoters.

Objectives.The largest increase of any ancestry group between the 1990 and 2000 Census in the United States were "unhyphenated Americans," those whites who claimed an "American" or no ancestry. This article measures this group's voting habits in the 2008 elections.Methods.With individual‐level attitudinal data and county‐level voting data from the 2008 primary and 2000–2008 general elections, the analyses use quantitative methods to estimate unhyphenated Americans' voting behavior.Results.Evidence indicates a strong rejection of Obama among counties with high proportions of unhyphenated Americans in both the 2008 primary and general elections.Conclusion.While spatially concentrated in and near Appalachia, unhyphenated Americans' politics are distinctive irrespective of socioeconomic status, religion, and geography, being one of the few groups in which Barack Obama lost votes compared to previous Democratic nominees. Variation in the share of unhyphenated Americans explains more of the difference between 2008 and past elections than variation in the share of African Americans per county.

We assess the partisan consequences of alternative redistricting plans in 2001 for the Texas House of Representatives. In the paper, we combine a methodological tool (the JudgeIt program) that allows us to examine both enacted and proposed redistricting maps with data from not only the districts used in the 2002 and 2004 Texas House elections, but also from districts that existed only in proposed plans. We find that each redistricting plan benefited their sponsor's party. In fact, a plan supported and advocated by Democratic Speaker Pete Laney is projected to have kept a Democratic majority in the Texas House after the 2002 elections. Our data also demonstrate that rules matter in redistricting, especially in the context of substantial party system change shown by the growth of the Republican Party in Texas.

We assess the partisan consequences of alternative redistricting plans in 2001 for the Texas Rouse of Representatives. In the paper, we combine a methodological tool (the JudgeIt program) that allows us to examine both enacted & proposed redistricting maps with data from not only the districts used in the 2002 & 2004 Texas House elections, but also from districts that existed only in proposed plans. We find that each redistricting plan benefited their sponsor's party. In fact, a plan supported & advocated by Democratic Speaker Pete Laney is projected to have kept a Democratic majority in the Texas House after the 2002 elections. Our data also demonstrate that rules matter in redistricting, especially in the context of substantial party system change shown by the growth of the Republican Party in Texas. Tables, Appendixes, References. Adapted from the source document.

How did the 2020 election shape the major political parties in the U.S? This volume explores the opposing forces of party polarization and internal party factionalism during this tumultuous period. Leading authors demonstrate how factions within the parties reshaped, and responded to, the changing political environment.

The seventh annual Teaching and Learning Conference (TLC) was held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, from February 5 to 7, 2010, with 224 attendees onsite. The theme for the meeting was "Advancing Excellence in Teaching Political Science." Using the working-group model, the TLC track format encourages in-depth discussion and debate on research dealing with the scholarship of teaching and learning.