Election Campaign Essay

Over the years Campaigning in the U.S. has changed drastically because of technological advances, the internet, social media, and the real-time information sharing across the globe. One study suggest that over the years, examining 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012, political advertising has become more negative. The Wesleyan Media Project’s charts states and 2004 election 45 percent of the ads were negative, where in 2012 about 65 percent of the ads were negative.1 There are many speculations on why these negative ads are increasing with every election, but one fact is that campaigns can use negativity to bring attention to a certain topic and sometimes benefit from the free media coverage if the controversy is popular enough.

The voters that were targeted were low propensity Republican voters.. The way that these voters were identified was through voter history, technology that shows which elections you voted in and how often you voted. We know targeting these voters is an effective strategy to increase voter turnout on election day. Research conducted by Author Alan S. Gerber and Professor Donald P. Green show how crucial this face to face interaction could be to getting Republicans who normally don't vote to vote. In their article, The Effects of Canvassing, Telephone Calls, and Direct Mail on Voter Turnout: A Field Experiment they concluded that “Face to face interaction dramatically increases the chance that voters will go to the polls.”(Gerber and Green, 2010) Talking to these voters face to face in their community had a positive effect in which Republicans who were not going to vote, will now vote on election day. After compiling the data, walkbooks were created with these specific low propensity Republican households shown in the walkbook. About one hundred houses were comprised in one walkbook. All sixteen volunteers were given one walkbook to

Campaign spending and its correlation between the outcomes of winning the vote of the public versus losing votes to a challenger in an election. In a comparison of voters, are individuals more likely to vote for a candidate that spends an exuberant amount of money campaigning versus the candidate who frugally spends on a campaign? The importance of studying the phenomenon of campaign spending, more versus less, looks into proving whether what is spent conclusively influences the voter more than what is being stated during the candidate's campaign. Billboards, radio and tv ads, literature, do all these things make a difference, more so than a town hall meeting? Does more money equate to more fame, which in turn brings the voters to the polls to vote for that candidate?

Recently modern campaigning has had major effects on voter turnout. Concluded from presidential campaigns and geographic research many voters have begun participating more due to the modern campaigning. Andrew Gelman Washington Post writer, states that research found from Enos and Fowler that in the 2012 election from there on examples of modern campaigning was heavily illustrated when the voting population began expanding. The campaigning focused more on personalizing individuals through the traditional door knocking and making phone calls. Also, mentioned was the higher turnout in battleground states due to the campaigning affecting their voter turnout as well.

Rationale - The presidential election is only half the battle voter engagement drops significantly after a presidential election and during state and local elections. However, these elections are arguably more important because state and local officials vote on bills to create laws that govern our country and everyday life. Therefore, It is my belief that both registered and unregistered voters will greatly benefit from increased voter engagement with their state and local elected officials and community leaders

Druckman points out how the influence campaigns have on voting conduct has been quite a baffling issue in political science because researches have to come to a consensus of what the campaign and co-occurring media will have influence on. In recent times, academics

Gerber and Green’s New Haven experiment in The Victory Lab reveals how the mobilization of voters in Get Out the Vote (GOTV) efforts were futile due to contemporary forms of “individual contact [lacking] a personal touch” (Issenberg 83). Gerber and Green designed a field experiment to measure “what effects … the most fundamental campaign methods could have on an election’s outcome” by using three basic modes of voter contact - direct mail, phone call, and doorstep visit (Issenberg 80). All of the basic modes incorporated a similar nonpartisan and patriotic appeal by referring to the ubiquitous notion of voting as a civic duty. These methods were tested on thirty thousand New Haven voters across the city’s 29 out of 30 wards in a municipal

If I were to run for office and wanted to increase voter’s participation, I would clean my dirty laundry first and put everything out on the table in order to gain my voters trust and interact more with the public. I would reach out through the social media. Henceforth, 44 percent of American voters received information about the election in 2016 through social media. Technology has made it possible to contact billions of Americans with a touch of a button. The campaign would start running ads early in the elections on TV channels that has the most viewers. My ads would be positives about the campaign and the issues I stand for. The campaign would be about honor and truth and not be swayed from my values, so I can receive a vote. I would also

Political campaigns can elevate a candidate’s position, or a poorly run campaign can doom that candidate’s chances no matter how good the candidate is. At the end of the day all that matters is winning. That is the goal of political campaigns in a nutshell. There have been many tactics implemented when trying to run a campaign. Of the tactics implemented there are those that are believed to work better than others. Of those that work better than others are, mobilizing base voters by properly identifying who they are, having a clear message and spreading that message to voters, debate performances and fundraising efforts. In this paper the 2008 presidential campaign of current president Barack Obama will be measured along with the 2004 presidential campaign of John F. Kerry. In this paper both campaigns will be analyzed on what tactics they used properly, where they were not as effective and what could have been differently.

Election day operations play a huge role in increasing or in this case even decreasing voter turnout. In just the past primary elections the attorney general’s office received a record number of complaints ranging from issues with poll workers to broken machines. During the recent primary day, the office received more than 1,000 complaints compared to the 150 complaints received during the presidential elections in 2012.1 Broken machines and human error are inevitable problems that we try to minimize but we have to be realistic enough to expect, however problems such as those caused by improper training of poll workers or confusion caused by illegible ballots, should never occur. If voters are faced with issues such as polls sites opening late, long lines, broken machines that remain broken for hours, etc. New York may continue to see decreasing voter turnout as there is a possibility that these bad experiences can deter a voter from voting that day, or worse, ever again. Therefore, it is very important for the New York City Board of Elections to address these concerns dealing with election day operations, more specifically, enhancing poll worker recruitment and training and making the ballot design more efficient.

Voter turnout, as well as election results, depend upon and are effected by several different factors. Everything from family status to beliefs about abortion can determine how a person will vote. In my presentation, however, I focused on three aspects that effect voter turnout and elections. I found, in my research, that a voter's age, sex and party identification greatly factor into how a person will cast his or her vote.

Opposition research is a key part in modern campaigns, however the increase in negative campaigning coupled with advancements in research techniques will create a more hostile election cycle. Negative campaigning has been a method that helped control those with a lot of outside factors affecting them prior to being elected. The right campaign ad with fact checked information is an amazing asset to a campaign team. Media has progressed to a point where they demand live, off-the-cuff news twenty-four seven from the campaign trail. This makes it hard for the well calculated responses the political community is used to less desirable. The right conditions have been meet to allow for an anomaly to take advantage of negative campaigning and using more media desirable taglines to gain popularity. This popularity comes at a cost however; the cost is damaging the success of getting the public to be more involved in politics.

Turnout can be simply defined as “The percentage of voters who cast a vote in an election”. Several researchers have worked on turnout in the election according to Ansolabehere and Iyengar, (1995) Negative advertising decreased planned to vote for the attacker and resulted in lower turnout (Ansolabehere et al. 1999; Garand and Graddy, 2001; Goldstein, 1997). Negative campaign has lower turnout impact (Brooks, 2000). The positive campaign helps in turnout (Brooks 2006). Negative advertising reported slightly higher turnout for a respondent who saw one or two negative advertisements (Clinton and Lapinski, 2004). Large negative campaign link with higher turnout rates (Djupe and Peterson, 2002). Higher negative advertisement resulted in higher

It has been proven that, “People are more likely to vote when they have been mobilized by a campaign. When a campaign worker contacts a voter and asks for his or her vote, the likelihood of voting increases substantially” (Herrnson et al. 132). By personally contacting voters on the ground instead of solely relying on paid and free media, President Obama’s campaign hopes to not only increase turnout, but also to collect valuable information regarding where voters stand in their support or disapproval of the president. This information, collected by canvassers, is stored in computer databases and will be used later in the campaign to contact voters who previously expressed support for the president to make sure they get to the polls. Clearly, having a strong ground game can be the difference between a narrow win or a slim defeat in a close election.

The two predominant schools of literature on voting patterns have both been used to approach these studies. The “Spatial school” assumes that the voter has a given stake or interest in the outcome of the vote, which he recognizes, and which leads him to vote as he does, (Enelow, Hinich 1984). Downs (1957) presents the theory of the “system of information acquisition,” to explain how voter’s, using a single trait to gather information about a candidate, that allows them to rationally judge what the candidates position will be on issues that concern them.