Presidential Primaries

Although Burr was never able to reach 50% in the polls, he exceeded that threshold on Election Day and defeated Ross by almost 6%. In order to analyze the political climate further, I will be comparing the exit polls for both Trump vs. Clinton and Burr vs Ross. This will help explain why Ross was entering the Senate race with a disadvantage despite media pundits arguing that higher turnout in presidential election years should benefit Ross. Although Five Thirty Eight gave Clinton the slight edge to defeat Trump in North Carolina, Trump’s was able to carry the state with a modest performance. Although Real Clear Politics had Burr winning by an average of 2%, that was certainly below the 5.7% final result. In a three way race between Trump, Clinton, and Johnson, Trump was predicted to win North Carolina by about 1%. The actual results, however, showed Trump winning by about 4%. Although this paper is focusing on the Senate race, it’s certainly important to note the impact that a presidential candidate can have on the electoral map, particularly

Due to heavy campaigning, McCain was able to win New Hampshire by a “48% to 30%”iv[iv] margin. George W. Bush emphatically won the closed Delaware primary by a “51% to 25%”v[v] margin. Bush then went on to win in South Carolina’s modified open primary by a “53% to 42%”vi[vi] margin, thus robbing McCain’s hopes of gaining momentum. Despite this, McCain did get back on the winning track with wins in Michigan’s open primary and in Arizona’s closed primary.

The Iowa Caucuses have rules that vary between the Republican and Democratic parties that help maintain the “healthy grassroots politics” throughout the process of the caucus. The Republican caucuses are significantly simpler than the Democratic caucuses and this is due to the fact that the results of the Republican caucuses do not have the same impact on the selection of delegates as the Democratic caucuses. The Democrats select their delegates based solely on their caucus results, whereas Republicans simply take the caucus results into consideration when selecting their delegates. In order to assign delegates, the candidate will need to meet the viability threshold set in place. In other words, Bernie Sanders would need at least 15% of the people attending the caucuses to support him for a delegate to be assigned. Since this specific rule is in place, many more steps must exist in order for the viability threshold to be quantified. For example, a head count is necessary to determine the total amount of registered voters participating. Once this total is established, participants separate into “labeled” groups to determine who supports which candidate. At this point, the viability threshold will determine which candidates get assigned a delegate, based on the support indicated by the amount of voters per

There has not been a critical election in recent years because mass media has created a less passionate partisan atmosphere. Candidate-centered politics allows candidates to reach out directly to voters through televised campaign ads and relay their opinions on public issues. Thus, a candidate’s message may reach a broader audience, including those of the opposite party, because anyone could see a campaign ad on a television, as opposed to going to a political rally of solely Republicans or Democrats. These candidates do not require as much help from their party’s members to recruit voters with political rallies or door-to-door recruitment; however, political rallies and door-to-door recruitment have a natural tendency to excite and unite parties more than television campaign ads that voters watch from their living-room sofa. Candidate-centered

Clinton lost the election in 1980 losing his spot as Governor. Not letting that get him down he worked hard and gained back his spot as governor where he served four consecutive terms.In 1992 Clinton easily defeated his opponents in the democratic primaries becoming the democratic presidential nominee. He chose senator Al Gore to serve as his vice presidential running mate. On November 3rd 1992 Clinton became the 42nd president of the united states. Bill Clinton's views were shaped by his worship in the southern baptist church and his family. Going through all different colleges traveling overseas to oxford and across the country also helped to shape his political views. Bills experiences as state attorney general and governor at such a young age allowed him to gain knowledge and help shape his political views. Bill Clinton started his campaign off by pounding hard the advantages given to the rich by Reagan and

The election of 1972 had an incumbent Republican president Richard Nixon running for reelection against a divided Democratic party. Many predicted that Edward Kennedy, John F. Kennedy’s brother, would be the Democrat nominee for President. After he declined the offer, the race became wide open. The perceived front runners for the nomination were Senator Edmund Muskie and former Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Muskie had been running a successful campaign in ‘68 when the “Canuck letter” came out, and after responding emotionally to accusations about his wife, his calm and reasoned persona was ruined. George Wallace, the famous anti-integrationist was running for the Democratic nomination as well as Senator George McGovern from South Dakota was also running, but he had very low poll numbers early into campaigns during the primaries. In August, McGovern was given 200 to 1 odds of securing the Democratic nomination.(Anson)

On the Democratic side Bernie Sanders won over Hillary Clinton 60% to 38.3% capturing 13 delegates to Clinton’s 9 delegates. This win might come as a shocking blow to the Clinton campaign, which in 2008, relied on New Hampshire to prop her up after her loss to Barack Obama in the Iowa caucus. While Clinton didn’t lose Iowa this time, she did not win with a compelling lead over Sanders like she thought she might. Clinton only won by .3%, with the final vote being called at 49.9% to 49.6% with Clinton and Sanders gaining 23 and 21 delegates respectively. A more liberal candidate, just like in 2008, is challenging Clinton’s frontrunner status. But the real question is, like in 2008, will she not only lose the frontrunner status, but the Democratic primary in its entirety?

In the Democratic results of the New Hampshire primaries, Bernie Sanders’s win against Hillary Clinton was although well predicted, still a surprising win. Throughout this entire campaign trail, many people believed Hillary was a straight win for the

The 2004 and 2012 Presidential Elections demonstrated the voter’s commitment to incumbent Presidents during tough times and major crises. In 2004, voters were interested in foreign policy, terrorism and the current wars. In 2012 the national focus was the economy, following the financial crisis that began in 2008. Consequently, the challenging nominees had backgrounds appropriate for the issues, but had the inability to stand out as a better option. Perhaps because, typically incumbents have the advantage of better name recognition, experience and their agenda has had longer time to be defined.

First and foremost...let me beg your pardon for the double negative in my title. It was a poor excuse for an attention getter. However, I must say, if it did succeed in getting your attention...yea for me! The reason I resorted to such

According to a survey conducted by the Associated Press beginning in April, Republican county chairmen, town leaders, and other party leaders believed that Nixon would prevail to become the party nominee at the convention. This was the third such poll taken by the AP with Goldwater winning the first poll in October and the second in December after Kennedy’s assassination caused a sharp decline in his position. For his part, Rockefeller remained as the preferred candidate by county leaders, but they no longer held an optimistic view of his chances. Most interesting of all, while most respondents believed Nixon would likely win the nomination, Goldwater was the overall preferred choice; yet, 223 of the 1,006 respondents replied “no opinion” to the question of who is most likely to win the nomination. For both sides, the conservatives and the liberals, New Hampshire did not mean much to them or so they said, though confidence in Goldwater’s campaign abilities varied based on ideology. Their concern lay in the mega primary state of California, a winner-take-all contest. Till then, they would have to wait while the other primaries captured the spotlight.

In the history of the United States, the 2016 election cycle is the 57th presidential election, yet it could be the strangest of them all. In contrast, the 2012 election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney was a relatively tame and mundane election. It was decided by two elements, just as the 2016 election will be decided by. Choice, both by the media and the candidates is one ingredient to determine the outcome of elections. Chance similarly affects election outcomes, though chance deals with environmental factors which candidates cannot control. First, I will briefly explore Sides and Vavreck’s theory in The Gamble. After exploring their theory, I will use their theory to look at the 2016 Democratic primary and assess whether or not it is useful when applied to primaries or if the theory only pertains to the general election. Finally, I will then apply their theory to the 2016 general election to predict the most likely outcome where Hilary Clinton is the next president of the United States. Looking at Sides and Vavreck’s theory and applying it to the current electoral environment, it will become clear that Hilary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination for president and subsequently the general election as well to become the first female president of the United States.

The democratic debate stage almost bursted into flames when one of the hosts questioned Bernie Sanders’ eligibility to be called a democratic representative. He recounted the facts that Sanders had been the “longest serving independent in the United States Congress,” and only joined the Democratic Party recently. Sanders replied with an enumeration of his previous projects with the party during the time. He bravely confirmed those facts, and proved that even though he officially did not work with his current political party for a long amount, he still supported their ideas and projects. To support his claim, Sanders reminded that audience that he “caucused with the House [of Representatives] for 19 years,... caucused with the Senate for 9 years,... and was elected by the democrats to be the chair of the Veterans committee three years ago.” Sanders then mentioned the 50-states party strategy that revived Hillary Clinton’s voice against her rival. She acknowledged that it was former the Vermont Governor's idea, Howard Dean, to have the 50-states party system. Her turn to count the people supporting her presidency followed the small

The presidential election starts with at the beginning of the election year. When candidates announce plans to run for office. During this sage candidates make speeches, and participate in debates. During this time candidates within the same party compete with each other for delegates. These delegates act as representatives who pledge to support the candid’s nomination at the national party convention and persuade potential voters in general.

Clinton’s campaign was mainly focused on economic issues and the Reagan-Bush deficit. He emphasized the economic struggles the younger generations would be stuck with. A slogan posted outside Clinton headquarters read, “It’s the economy, stupid.” Clinton received twice as many electoral votes as Bush and a 43% popular vote. Perot got a popular vote of 19%. During the campaign of his second term, Clinton faced the bleak reality that he might not win. Many of his promises fell through and Republicans were head of both houses of Congress. The Republican candidate was Robert Dole. Ross Perot tried again for the presidency but did not receive as much attention as the previous election. Clinton became the candidate of ‘’family values’’ which got him the suburban votes. The press tried to make stories but even though it embarrassed the Democratic party, it did not change the public mind about Dole. Clinton won with more than twice as many