When voter turnout is high, Democrats have an advantage--or so the truism goes. But, it is true? In The Turnout Myth, Daron Shaw and John Petrocik refute the widely held convention that high voter participation benefits Democrats while low involvement helps Republicans. The authors examine over 50 years of presidential, gubernatorial, Senatorial, and House election data to show that there is no consistent partisan effect associated with voter turnout in national elections. Instead...

A critical analysis of the connections that the United States Supreme Court has made between campaign finance regulations and voters' behavior. The sanctity of political speech is a key element of the United States Constitution and a cornerstone of the American republic. When the Supreme Court linked political speech to campaign finance in its landmark Buckley v. Valeo (1976) decision, the modern era of campaign finance regulation was born. The decision stated tha...

Covering the beginning of the television era to the present, Battleground provides an unprecedented look at the Electoral College strategies used by US presidential campaigns from 1952 to 2020 and what difference they make on election day. Although US presidential campaigns are among the most closely followed events in the world, academic research tends to conclude that they are much less important for shaping election-day outcomes than broader economic conditions and more gradual...

Late deciders go for the challenger; turnout helps the Democrats; the gender gap results from a surge in Democratic preference among women--these and many other myths are standard fare among average citizens, political pundits, and even some academics. But are these conventional wisdoms--familiar to anyone who watches Sunday morning talk shows--really valid? Unconventional Wisdom offers a novel yet highly accessible synthesis of what we know about American voters and elections. It...