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211 books match the query 'Campaigns & Elections' and 12 start with w

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Waves of Discontent

Electoral Volatility, Public Policymaking, and the Health of American Democracy

Jacob F.H. Smith

University of Michigan Press, 2025

After a period of relative calm in congressional elections prior to 2006, America has experienced a series of highly competitive, volatile national elections. Since then, at least one of the US House, US Senate, and presidency has flipped party control—often with a large House or Senate seat swing—with the exception of the 2012 election. In Waves of Discontent, Jacob F. H. Smith argues that a pervasive feeling of displeasure in the American public has caused this increase in electoral volatility.

Conducting statistical analyses of a wide array of surveys, Smith found that these feelings of displeasure translate to lower turnout among voters from the president’s party and a higher percentage of independents voting for the other party. Subsequently, he conducted a content analysis of New York Times articles to look at the connection between unrest in American society and seat swings in congressional elections, even before the existence of polling. Examining the consequences of volatility in congressional elections reveals that political amateurs are more likely to win in wave years than in normal years. Based on this data, Smith presents a new theory about the policy process—the policy doom loop—in which frustration among voters at both the inability of Congress to pass policy and anger at policies that actually do pass results in even more churn in congressional elections. Waves of Discontent offers some suggestions to promote constructive policymaking efforts in Washington to reduce frustration in the electorate.

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Where Women Run

Gender and Party in the American States

Kira Sanbonmatsu

University of Michigan Press, 2010

Why don’t more women run for office? Why are certain states more likely to have female candidates and representatives? Would strengthening political parties narrow the national gender gap? Where Women Run addresses these important questions through a rare and incisive look at how candidates are recruited. Drawing on surveys and case studies of party leaders and legislators in six states, political scientist Kira Sanbonmatsu analyzes the links between parties and representation, exposing the mechanism by which parties’ informal recruitment practices shape who runs—or doesn’t run—for political office in America.

“Kira Sanbonmatsu has done a masterful job of linking the representation of women in elective office to the activities of party organizations in the states. She combines qualitative and quantitative data to show how women are navigating the campaign process to become elected leaders and the changing role of party organizations in their recruitment and election. It is a significant contribution to the study of representative democracy.”
--Barbara Burrell, Northern Illinois University

“Sanbonmatsu has produced an excellent study that will invigorate research on the role of political parties and the recruitment of women candidates. Using a variety of methods and data sources, she has crafted a tightly constructed, clearly argued, and exceedingly well-written study. A commendable and convincing job.”
--Gary Moncrief, Boise State University

“Sanbonmatsu offers important insights in two neglected areas of American politics: the role of political parties in recruiting candidates and the continued under-representation of women in elected office. Connecting the two subjects through careful qualitative and statistical methods, insightful interpretation of the literature and interesting findings, the book is a significant new addition to scholarship on parties, gender, and political recruitment.”
--Linda Fowler, Dartmouth College

Kira Sanbonmatsu is Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University and Senior Scholar at the Eagleton Institute of Politics’ Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP). She was previously associate professor at Ohio State University. She is the author of Democrats, Republicans, and the Politics of Women’s Place.

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Whistle Stop

How 31,000 Miles of Train Travel, 352 Speeches, and a Little Midwest Gumption Saved the Presidency of Harry Truman

Philip White

University Press of New England, 2015

President Harry Truman was a disappointment to the Democrats, and a godsend to the Republicans. Every attempt to paint Truman with the grace, charm, and grandeur of Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been a dismal failure: Truman’s virtues were simpler, plainer, more direct. The challenges he faced—stirrings of civil rights and southern resentment at home, and communist aggression and brinkmanship abroad—could not have been more critical. By the summer of 1948 the prospects of a second term for Truman looked bleak. Newspapers and popular opinion nationwide had all but anointed as president Thomas Dewey, the Republican New York Governor. Truman could not even be certain of his own party’s nomination: the Democrats, still in mourning for FDR, were deeply riven, with Henry Wallace and Strom Thurmond leading breakaway Progressive and Dixiecrat factions. Finally, with ingenuity born of desperation, Truman’s aides hit upon a plan: get the president in front of as many regular voters as possible, preferably in intimate settings, all across the country. To the surprise of everyone but Harry Truman, it worked. Whistle Stop is the first book of its kind: a micro-history of the summer and fall of 1948 when Truman took to the rails, crisscrossing the country from June right up to Election Day in November. The tour and the campaign culminated with the iconic image of a grinning, victorious Truman holding aloft the famous Chicago Tribune headline: “Dewey Defeats Truman.”

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Who Runs?

The Masculine Advantage in Candidate Emergence

Sarah Oliver and Meredith Conroy

University of Michigan Press, 2020

To explain women’s underrepresentation in American politics, researchers have directed their attention to differences between men and women, especially during the candidate emergence process, which includes recruitment, perception of qualifications, and political ambition. Although these previous analyses have shown that consistent dissimilarities likely explain why men outnumber women in government, they have overlooked a more explicit role for gender (masculinity and femininity) in explanations of candidate emergence variation.
Meredith Conroy and Sarah Oliver focus on the candidate emergence process (recruitment, perceived qualifications, and ambition), and investigate the affects of individuals’ gender personality on these variables to improve theories of women’s underrepresentation in government. They argue that since politics and masculinity are congruent, we should observe more precise variation in the candidate emergence process along gender differences, than along sex differences in isolation. Individuals who are more masculine will be more likely to be recruited, perceive of themselves as qualified, and express political ambition, than less masculine individuals. This differs from studies that look at sex differences, because it accepts that some women defy gender norms and break into politics. By including a measure of gender personality we can more fully grapple with women’s progress in American politics, and consider whether this progress rests on masculine behaviors and attributes. Who Runs? The Masculine Advantage in Candidate Emergence explores this possibility and the potential ramifications.

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Who Wants to Run?

How the Devaluing of Political Office Drives Polarization

Andrew B. Hall

University of Chicago Press, 2019

The growing ideological gulf between Democrats and Republicans is one of the biggest issues in American politics today. Our legislatures, composed of members from two sharply disagreeing parties, are struggling to function as the founders intended them to. If we want to reduce the ideological gulf in our legislatures, we must first understand what has caused it to widen so much over the past forty years.

Andrew B. Hall argues that we have missed one of the most important reasons for this ideological gulf: the increasing reluctance of moderate citizens to run for office. While political scientists, journalists, and pundits have largely focused on voters, worried that they may be too partisan, too uninformed to vote for moderate candidates, or simply too extreme in their own political views, Hall argues that our political system discourages moderate candidates from seeking office in the first place. Running for office has rarely been harder than it is in America today, and the costs dissuade moderates more than extremists. Candidates have to wage ceaseless campaigns, dialing for dollars for most of their waking hours while enduring relentless news and social media coverage. When moderate candidates are unwilling to run, voters do not even have the opportunity to send them to office. To understand what is wrong with our legislatures, then, we need to ask ourselves the question: who wants to run? If we want more moderate legislators, we need to make them a better job offer.

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Why Americans Split Their Tickets

Campaigns, Competition, and Divided Government

Barry C. Burden and David C. Kimball

University of Michigan Press, 2004

In Why Americans Split Their Tickets, Barry C. Burden and David C. Kimball argue that divided government is produced unintentionally. Using a new quantitative method to analyze voting in presidential, House, and Senate elections from 1952 to 1996, they reject the dominant explanation for divided government, that ticket splitting is done to balance parties that are far from the center. The ideological positions of candidates do not matter in American elections, but voters favor centrist candidates rather than a mix of extremists. When candidates of opposing parties adopt similar platforms, ticket splitting arises. For voters, ideological differences between the parties blur and other considerations such as candidate characteristics exert a greater influence on their voting decisions. Among their other findings, the authors link changes in congressional campaigns--namely the rise of incumbency advantage and the greater importance of money in the 1960s and 1970s--to ticket splitting and argue, in addition, that the transformation of the South from a Democratic stronghold to a Republican-leaning environment has made regional factors less important.

Burden and Kimball draw upon a diverse and unique range of data as evidence for their argument. Their analyses rely on survey data, aggregate election returns, and new ecological inference estimates for every House and Senate election from 1952 to 1996. This approach allows for the examination of divided voting in traditional ways, such as choosing a Democratic presidential candidate and a Republican House candidate on a single ballot, to less traditional forms, such as voting in a midterm House election and choosing a state's Senate delegation.

Barry C. Burden is Assistant Professor of Government, Harvard University. David C. Kimball is Assistant Professor of Political Science, University of Missouri, St. Louis.

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Why Iowa?

How Caucuses and Sequential Elections Improve the Presidential Nominating Process

David P. Redlawsk, Caroline J. Tolbert, and Todd Donovan

University of Chicago Press, 2010

If Barack Obama had not won in Iowa, most commentators believe that he would not have been able to go on to capture the Democratic nomination for president. Why Iowa? offers the definitive account of those early weeks of the campaign season: from how the Iowa caucuses work and what motivates the candidates’ campaigns, to participation and turnout, as well as the lingering effects that the campaigning had on Iowa voters. Demonstrating how “what happens in Iowa” truly reverberates throughout the country, five-time Iowa precinct caucus chair David P. Redlawsk and his coauthors take us on an inside tour of one of the most media-saturated and speculated-about campaign events in American politics.

Considering whether a sequential primary system, in which early, smaller states such as Iowa and New Hampshire have such a tremendous impact is fair or beneficial to the country as a whole, the authors here demonstrate that not only is the impact warranted, but it also reveals a great deal about informational elements of the campaigns. Contrary to conventional wisdom, this sequential system does confer huge benefits on the nominating process while Iowa’s particularly well-designed caucus system—extensively explored here for the first time—brings candidates’ arguments, strengths, and weaknesses into the open and under the media’s lens.

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Why Veterans Run

Military Service in American Presidential Elections, 1789-2016

Jeremy M. Teigen

Temple University Press, 2017

The assumptions that military service helps candidates attract votes—while lacking it harms a candidate’s chances—has been an article of faith since the electoral coronation of George Washington in 1789. Perhaps the most compelling fact driving the perception that military service helps win votes is the large number of veterans who have held public office. Some candidates even exaggerate their military service to persuade voters. However, sufficient counter-examples undermine the idea that military veterans enjoy an advantage when seeking political office.

In Why Veterans Run, Jeremy Teigenexplains the tendency of parties to elevate those with armed forces experience to run for high office. He describes the veteran candidate phenomenon by examining the related factors and patterns, showing why different eras have more former generals running and why the number of veterans in election cycles varies. With both quantitative and qualitative analysis, Why Veterans Run investigates each postwar era in U.S. electoral history and elaborates why so many veterans run for office. Teigen also reveals how election outcomes with veteran candidates illuminate the relationship between the military and civilian spheres as well as the preferences of the American electorate.

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Wisconsin Votes

An Electoral History

Robert Booth Fowler

University of Wisconsin Press, 2008

This is the first full history of voting in Wisconsin from statehood in 1848 to the present. Fowler both tells the story of voting in key elections across the years and investigates electoral trends and patterns over the course of Wisconsin’s history. He explores the ways that ethnic and religious groups in the state have voted historically and how they vote today, and he looks at the successes and failures of the two major parties over the years. Highlighting important historical movements, Fowler discusses the great struggle for women’s suffrage and the rich tales of many Wisconsin third parties—the Socialists, Progressives, the Prohibition Party, and others. Here, too, are the famous politicians in Wisconsin history, such as the La Follettes, William Proxmire, and Tommy Thompson.

Winner, Award of Merit for Leadership in History, American Association for State and Local History

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Wisconsin for Kennedy

The Primary That Launched a President and Changed the Course of History

B. J. Hollars

Wisconsin Historical Society Press, 2024

The behind-the-scenes story of JFK’s 1960 Wisconsin primary campaign

When John F. Kennedy ran for president in 1960, he did something no candidate had done before: he leveraged the power of state primaries to win his party’s nomination. Kennedy’s first battleground state? Wisconsin—a state that would prove more arduous, more exhausting, and more crucial to winning the presidency than any other.

Wisconsin for Kennedy brings to life the stories behind JFK’s history-making 1960 Wisconsin primary campaign, and how Kennedy’s team managed to outmaneuver his politically seasoned opponent, Hubert Humphrey. From Jackie Kennedy commandeering a supermarket loudspeaker in Kenosha, to the Wisconsin forklift driver who planned President Kennedy’s final trip to Dallas, this captivating book places readers at the heart of the action.

Author B.J. Hollars chronicles JFK’s nail-biting Wisconsin win by drawing on rarely cited oral histories from the eclectic team of people who worked together to make it happen: a cranberry farmer, a union leader, a mayor, an architect, and others. Wisconsin for Kennedy explores how Wisconsin helped propel JFK all the way to the White House in a riveting historical account that reads like a work of rollicking, page-turning fiction.

“In the spirit of Theodore H. White’s The Making of The President: 1960, B.J. Hollars offers a vivid account of the Wisconsin primary that launched JFK’s successful presidential campaign, inspiring voters to pass the torch to a new generation of leadership for our country. Anyone mesmerized by JFK’s legacy will enjoy this great read.”
—Former US Representative Ron Kind

“For generations, my family has had the great privilege of serving the people of Wisconsin. In Wisconsin for Kennedy, B.J. Hollars performs his own act of service, recounting the riveting and untold story of Wisconsin’s politically perilous 1960 primary. A poignant contribution to political history that reads like a page-turner.”
—Former Wisconsin Governor James Doyle Jr.

"A hopeful quality . . . pervades Wisconsin for Kennedy, written about a time and place when politics was conducted in a less severe and divisive way than it is now. Hollars further succeeds in showing how political history is made by a wide range of citizens. Wisconsinites, Midwesterners, and indeed Americans of all political persuasions can be grateful to B.J. Hollars for these important reminders."
— Middle West Review

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Women for President

Media Bias in Eight Campaigns

Erika Falk

University of Illinois Press, 2007

When Hillary Clinton announced her 2008 bid for president she was the Democratic front-runner. Despite this, she received less coverage than Barack Obama, who trailed her in the polls. Such a disparity is indicative of the gender bias the media has demonstrated in covering women candidates since the first woman ran for America’s highest office in 1872. Tracing the campaigns of eight women who ran for president through 2004--Victoria Woodhull, Belva Lockwood, Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Chisholm, Patricia Schroeder, Lenora Fulani, Elizabeth Dole, and Carol Moseley Braun--Erika Falk finds little progress in the fair treatment of women candidates. A thorough comparison of the women’s campaigns to those of their male opponents reveals a worrisome trend of sexism in press coverage--a trend that still persists today.

While women have been elected to the highest offices in countries such as England, Germany, and India, the idea that a woman could be president of the United States provokes scoffs and ridicule. The press portrays female candidates as unviable, unnatural, and incompetent, and often ignores or belittles women instead of reporting their ideas and intent. Since voters learn most details about presidential candidates through media outlets, Falk asserts that this prevailing bias calls into question the modern democratic assumption that men and women have comparable access to positions of power.

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Women for President

Media Bias in Nine Campaigns

Erika Falk

University of Illinois Press, 2010

Newly updated to examine Hillary Clinton's formidable 2008 presidential campaign, Women for President analyzes the gender bias the media has demonstrated in covering women candidates since the first woman ran for America's highest office in 1872. Tracing the campaigns of nine women who ran for president through 2008--Victoria Woodhull, Belva Lockwood, Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Chisholm, Patricia Schroeder, Lenora Fulani, Elizabeth Dole, Carol Moseley Braun, and Hillary Clinton--Erika Falk finds little progress in the fair treatment of women candidates. The press portrays female candidates as unviable, unnatural, and incompetent, and often ignores or belittles women instead of reporting their ideas and intent. This thorough comparison of men's and women's campaigns reveals a worrisome trend of sexism in press coverage--a trend that still persists today.

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