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Presidential Primaries (presidential + primary)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Humanities and Social Sciences100%

Selected Abstracts

Retrospective Voting in Presidential Primaries

PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2010
WILLIAM G. MAYER
Though retrospective performance evaluations are now widely appreciated as a major influence on voting in general elections, their influence in presidential primaries has rarely been noticed. Using exit polls conducted by major media organizations over the last nine election cycles, this article shows that retrospective voting is an important, indeed dominant, factor in two types of situations: when an incumbent president is running for reelection, and when an incumbent vice president is seeking to become his party's next presidential candidate. This finding, in turn, helps explain two significant institutional features of the contemporary presidential nomination process: why most recent presidents have been renominated without much difficulty, and why the vice presidency has become such a good launching pad for presidential candidacies. [source]

"I'm Not Prejudiced, but . . .": Compensatory Egalitarianism in the 2008 Democratic Presidential Primary

POLITICAL PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 4 2010
Corinne Moss-Racusin
The historic 2008 Democratic presidential primary race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton posed a difficult choice for egalitarian White voters, and many commentators speculated that the election outcome would reflect pitting the effects of racism against sexism (Steinem, 2008). Because self-reported prejudices may be untrustworthy, we used the Implicit Association Test (IAT) to assess White adults' (1) condemnation of prejudices, and (2) attitudes toward the candidates in relation to voting decisions, as part of an online survey. Results supported the proposed compensatory egalitarianism process, such that Whites' voting choice was consistent with their implicit candidate preference, but in an effort to remain egalitarian, participants compensated for this preference by automatically condemning prejudice toward the other candidate's group. Additional findings showed that this process was moderated by participants' ethnicity and level of prejudice, as expected. Specifically, compensatory egalitarianism occurred primarily among Whites and individuals low in explicit prejudice. Implications for candidate support, aversive racism theory, and implicit compensation processes are discussed. [source]

Retrospective Voting in Presidential Primaries

PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2010
WILLIAM G. MAYER
Though retrospective performance evaluations are now widely appreciated as a major influence on voting in general elections, their influence in presidential primaries has rarely been noticed. Using exit polls conducted by major media organizations over the last nine election cycles, this article shows that retrospective voting is an important, indeed dominant, factor in two types of situations: when an incumbent president is running for reelection, and when an incumbent vice president is seeking to become his party's next presidential candidate. This finding, in turn, helps explain two significant institutional features of the contemporary presidential nomination process: why most recent presidents have been renominated without much difficulty, and why the vice presidency has become such a good launching pad for presidential candidacies. [source]

Polls and Elections: Dixie's Kingmakers: Stability and Change in Southern Presidential Primary Electorates

PRESIDENTIAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 2 2009
SETH C. MCKEE
Recent presidential primaries have taken place against the backdrop of a secular realignment in the South, a shift that carries important consequences for nomination politics. In this article, we use statewide exit polls to trace changes between 1988 and 2008 in the Southern Democratic and Republican primary electorates. We find that the Democratic electorate has grown strikingly more liberal, more racially diverse, and less heavily Protestant over the last 20 years. Meanwhile, the Republican Party has solidified into a conservative, almost exclusively white primary electorate. We also identify a growing partisan gender gap in the region. The findings suggest that it will be increasingly difficult for a centrist white Democrat, such as Jimmy Carter or Bill Clinton, to use the South as a launching pad to the nomination. In addition, the growing polarization of the parties' Southern primary electorates will likely continue to widen the ideological distance between the major presidential nominees. [source]