Not All Votes Are Created Equal

Not All Votes Are Created Equal Presidential Campaign Strategy with and without the Electoral College Benjamin Theodore April 18, 2011 Political Science 400: Thesis Advisor: Steve McGovern Acknowledgements I would like to extend my sincerest thanks to Professor Steve McGovern, who supervised this entire process during the past year. Thanks to his guidance, constructive criticism, and motivation, this project turned out better than I could have hoped for. I would also like to thank Professor Anita Isaacs for teaching me how to think and write like a political scientist, and for first exposing me to academic consideration of how institutions affect democratic participation. Further, I am deeply indebted to Jim Miller, who graciously and rapidly responded to my pleas for help, and explained how to navigate the labyrinthine structure of California’s campaign finance reports. His experience using these reports, the only journalist or scholar I could find who did so, was crucial in allowing me to finish this project. I am also grateful for the enthusiastic assistance of Reed Galen, Don Sipple, Paul Maslin, and Thad Kousser, who agreed to share their personal expertise in statewide campaigning, truly enhancing my project. I would also like to thank New York State Assemblywoman Sandra Galef and her former Chief of Staff, Catherine Borgia. They gave me my first opportunity to become involved in politics, and it was during my internship with them that I began researching the National Popular Vote bill. That experience is what sparked my continued interest in the Electoral College, and it is the primary inspiration for this thesis. I am particularly appreciative of my dad’s time and effort to help me navigate Microsoft Excel and hone the way I approached my data. Finally, I am truly grateful for the support of all my friends and family, who provided support and encouragement throughout this process, and have all put up with learning far more about the Electoral College than they ever wanted to know. Table of Contents I. Introduction…………………………………………………………………….p. 1 A state-based plan to end the Electoral College Brief history of previous attempts Progress of the National Popular Vote proposal Roadmap II. Literature Review: the Participatory Influence of the Electoral College…..p. 12 Electoral College Structural Perspective p. 13 Mass Electoral Response Model p. 15 Voting Power The Elite Response Model p. 19 Voter Rationality – Strategic Politician Hypothesis How the Electoral College affects campaign strategy p. 21 Campaign Effects – how campaign strategy affects voter behavior p. 26 Counter argument: Do campaigns actually activate anyone? Analysis of the National Popular Vote p. 32 III. Research Design: Modeling a New Era of Presidential Campaigning...…...p. 37 Evaluation of Previous Research p. 37 Hypothesis p. 40 Definition of Concepts p. 40 Measuring the Battleground Effect p. 44 Measuring a Hypothetical p. 46 Case Selection p. 47 IV. The Status Quo: Campaign Strategy with the Electoral College…….…..…p. 51 2004: Bush v. Kerry p. 52 2008: Obama v. McCain p. 55 Conclusions p. 56 V. Popular Vote Campaign Strategy in California….………………………….p. 59 Campaign Background p. 59 2006: Schwarzenegger v. Angelides 2010: Brown v. Whitman Conclusions about California Politics Data: Observations p. 71 The problem with Los Angeles Political characteristics of targeted markets Economic characteristics of targeted markets Ethnic/racial characteristics of targeted markets Who gets left out? Data: Discussion p. 85 VI. Conclusion……………………………………………………………………...p. 92 VII. Appendix A: Media Markets by County……………………………………..p. 98 VIII. Appendix B: Basic Campaign Spending Data……………………………….p. 99 IX. Appendix C: Other Market Data…………………………………………….p. 100 X. Appendix D: Without Los Angeles…………………………………………...p. 101 XI. Appendix E: Procedure for Campaign Finance Data Analysis…………….p. 103 XII. Works Cited…………………………………………………………………....p. 104 Introduction Vice-President Al Gore won the most votes for president in November of 2000, as a majority of American voters clearly indicated their preference for him to lead their country. Yet Gore could only look on as his opponent took the oath of office the following January. If this scene unfolded in another region of the world, there would be violent protests and demonstrations, intervention by international watchdogs, and cries of authoritarian suppression and voter fraud by the disenfranchised majority. Yet there were few protests, and no claims that the Constitution had been undermined or the republic overthrown. This was not the first time such a subversion of a nation‟s democratic will had occurred in the United States, yet the Electoral College – which allows the certification of a president whose opponent was preferred by a majority of citizens – has endured for over two hundred years in its present form1. But although this was “only” the fourth time in American history that the popular vote loser had taken the presidency, we have witnessed a fair share of near misses. A shift of fewer than 8,000 total votes spread over just four states would have cost President Kennedy an Electoral College majority in 1960, while President Carter would have lost to President Ford in 1976 with a shift of fewer than 10,000 total votes in two states. Even in 2004, when President Bush finally captured a sizeable three million vote margin in the popular vote, a shift of 20,000 votes across Iowa, Nevada, and New Mexico would have sent the election to the House of Representatives. 2 Our political system collectively accepts a rulebook that threatens every four years to invalidate the will of a majority. The stubborn endurance of this institution conflicts with decades of public opinion clearly in favor of reforming or removing the Electoral College entirely. As early as 1944, 65% of the 1 The winner of the most popular votes nationwide lost the Electoral College in 1824, 1876, 1888, and 2000. 2 Richie, Rob, “Ties Go to the Loser: A 2012 Electoral College Scenario.” Huffington Post, 25 January 2011. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-richie/ties-goes-to-the-loser-a-_b_813984.html> 1 public approved of nationwide popular election of the president; this number remained high through the 1960s and 1970s, and in a poll conducted in 2007, 72% of respondents favored this approach, including 60% of Republicans, who have generally had higher levels of opposition to the idea.3 It is quite likely that although many citizens oppose the Electoral College, and intuitively support conducting presidential elections in the same manner as all others, few have such strong opinions on the subject that popular sentiment could be rallied into a nationwide movement. Amending the Constitution is time-consuming and requires action by three-quarters of all state legislatures as well as the Congress. Only one amendment to the Constitution has been ratified in the past forty years. Besides the 27 proposals that were adopted, only six proposals have ever received the 2/3 vote necessary to send the potential amendment to the states. In general, “most constitutional amendments subsequent to the Bill of Rights have been adopted either to extend the franchise or in response to specific crises. Amendments generally are not adopted to prevent hypothetical problems.”4 Though one could imagine that pressing urgency of Electoral College reform erupting after a disputed election result, the fact that no such movement emerged in the few years after Bush v. Gore suggests that the American people and their representatives are not easily mobilized on the issue of electoral procedural reform. Though some complaints about the supposed unfairness of the Electoral College did emerge in the bitter aftermath of the 2000 election, they were largely constrained by partisan divisions (as Republicans saw no reason to undermine their new president‟s mandate by critiquing the institution that put him in office) and quickly faded after the results were certified. For Republican legislators to strike down the Electoral College so soon after its existence was 3 Koza, John R., Barry Fadem, Mark Grueskin, Michael S. Mandell, Robert Richie, and Joseph F. Zimmerman, Every Vote Equal: A State-Based Plan for Electing the President by National Popular Vote. National Popular Vote Press, Second Edition. <http://every-vote-equal.com/pdf/EVE-CH-7.pdf> p. 275-276 4 Josephson, William and Beverly J. Ross, “Repairing the Electoral College.” Journal of Legislation, Vol. 22 No. 145, 1996, <www.lexisnexis.com> 8 April 2011. P. 150 2 essential to their party‟s victory would suggest that President Bush did not truly deserve to occupy the White House. Furthermore, the GOP has generally been more supportive of the existing institution – a national election administered by the federal government is easily perceived as a usurpation of states‟ rights, and the party‟s judicial nominees of the past few decades have trended towards originalism in their treatment of the Constitution, suggesting a predisposition against changing a fundamental mechanism designed by the founders. There are other possibilities for why a proposal, seemingly designed be evaluated on its merits state-by- state, has become a partisan issue. It would be plausible to suggest that Republicans might represent small, rural states which collectively reap the benefits of the current system, and it is true that the small states of the South and Great Plains have influence disproportionate to their size thanks to the proportion+2 formula that allocates electoral votes. However, these are the very states that are ignored by candidates in the status quo. The politics and lingering ill will of the 2000 remain a compelling explanation. John Hood, president of a North Carolina conservative think tank, explained that he opposed the NPV‟s introduction in the state because he “perceived it to be a liberal or Democratic response to the Bush elections.”5 Perhaps, then, it will take another split outcome, in which the Republican candidate wins the popular vote but loses the Electoral College, to undo the “knee-jerk” reactions national political establishments in viewing the proposal in a partisan light.

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