Search results for ""author christopher wlezien""

With the 2012 presidential election upon us, will voters cast their ballots for the candidates whose platforms and positions best match their own? Or will the race for the next president of the United States come down largely to who runs the most effective campaigning? It's a question those who study elections have been considering for years with no clear resolution. In "The Timeline of Presidential Elections", Robert S. Erikson and Christopher Wlezien reveal for the first time how both factors come into play. Erikson and Wlezien have amassed data from close to two thousand national polls covering every presidential election from 1952 to 2008, allowing them to see how outcomes take shape over the course of an election year. Polls from the beginning of the year, they show, have virtually no predictive power. By mid-April, when the candidates have been identified and matched in pollsters' trial heats, preferences have come into focus - and predicted the winner in eleven of the fifteen elections. But a similar process of forming favorites takes place in the last six months, during which voters' intentions change only gradually, with particular events - including presidential debates - rarely resulting in dramatic change. Ultimately, Erikson and Wlezien show that it is through campaigns that voters are made aware of - or not made aware of - fundamental factors like candidates' policy positions that determine which ticket will get their votes. In other words, fundamentals matter, but only because of campaigns. Timely and compelling, this book will force us to rethink our assumptions about presidential elections.

Read more less

Election studies have reached a critical point in their development. In 1999, directors of election studies in Great Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and the USA, together with the directors of the European Elections Studies program and the Comparative Study of Election Systems group, met to discuss the conduct of election studies. After the conference, attendees responded to issues raised at the meeting by writing the chapters contained in this volume. There is unanimity among the investigators that studies based upon the Michigan model have reached the limit of what they can achieve. "The Future of Election Studies" considers the nature of new research questions facing electoral scholars, why conventional pre- and/or post-election studies are ill-equipped to address these questions, and how such studies are adapting to meet the challenges faced by scholars today and in the future.

Read more less