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The 2016 U.S. general election saw the emergence of a nonpolitician celebrity, Donald Trump, who frequently challenged existing power structures and figures. Trump's electoral win combined with reports of violence at campaign rallies, calls for removal of those in power, the ridicule of opponents, and the use of invectives and name‐calling suggest parallels to Bakhtin's elucidation of the carnivalesque. The authors examined media coverage of the 2016 campaign to uncover evidence of carnivalesque references. Such references were significantly higher for Trump than for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton and for the 2012 Republican campaign of Mitt Romney. The implications of presidential campaigns steeped in carnivalesque rhetoric and actions are discussed, with concerns raised regarding the future of media institutions and participatory democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examined associations between diagnoses with five chronic health conditions (diabetes, cancer, heart disease, asthma, and arthritis) and turnout in the 2012 US presidential election. We used cross‐sectional survey data from 16 states from the 2013 and 2014 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. We estimated a logistic regression model with the main dependent variable as a survey item asking respondents if they voted. We also estimated logistic regression models stratified by race/ethnicity to assess whether the chronic health condition–turnout relationships varied within each racial/ethnic group. Results show that individuals diagnosed with diabetes were 7 percentage‐points more likely to vote that those who were not. Stratified models revealed these diabetes–turnout relationships are particularly strong among those who identified as Hispanic and multiracial. Other health characteristics demonstrated consistency with previous literature, including lower self‐rated health being associated with lower odds of turnout. Our research suggests an intriguing new relationship between the experience of diabetes and a higher propensity to vote and that different chronic health conditions have varying associations with the likelihood to vote, implying that some groups are more vulnerable to being underrepresented in politics. Key Points: • Living with a chronic health condition and dealing with the associated social disadvantages may impact a citizen's ability and proclivity to participate in many aspects of civic and social life, including political activity. • We found that those who reported diagnosis with diabetes were significantly more likely to turn out to vote compared to those who had not been diagnosed, and this relationship varied across racial/ethnic groups. We found no significant differences in the likelihood of voting among any of the other chronic health conditions in the study. • Future research should investigate the social, organizational, and political factors that contribute to political participation and how these vary by different illness identities and racial/ethnic identities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Journalists and political pundits have characterized the 2016 presidential campaign as one featuring unusually high levels of political involvement among the mass public. This article subjects such claims to more systematic assessment, by comparing levels of political involvement in the 2016 presidential election campaign to those of previous election cycles. Through analyses of turnout statistics, survey questions by the Pew Research Center and the American National Election Studies measuring political interest, and Nielsen audience estimates of television viewing, the article finds that the public's interest and engagement in the fall of 2016 were actually quite similar to those of other recent elections. (It was during the primaries that political involvement in 2016 stood out more.) Acknowledging that aggregate analyses may obscure countervailing subgroup changes, the article examines subgroups that figured prominently in accounts of the 2016 campaign or were thought to have been particularly energized by Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012: men without a college education, African Americans, and young people. Those analyses turn up limited evidence for differential political interest trends. African Americans' campaign interest and turnout did drop compared to 2008 and 2012. But in the opposite direction of the prevailing narrative, young people showed relatively high political involvement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Socioemotional selectivity theory posits that individuals invest more selectively in goals and activities that are emotionally meaningful as they age and time horizons gradually shrink. We extend socioemotional selectivity theory to the domain of voting in elections. We use data from the 2012 American National Election Study to test the hypothesis that older voters would place greater emphasis on emotional reactions to the candidates in their presidential voting, relative to younger voters. The empirical evidence suggests support for this contention, implying socioemotional selectivity extends to voting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted a field experiment to study social influences on partisan political participation. We sent letters to 92,000 contributors during the 2012 presidential election campaign. We randomized features of the letters and measured the effects of these variations on the recipients' subsequent contributions. We find that making an individual's contributions more visible to her neighbors increases the contributions of supporters of the local majority party and decreases those of supporters of the minority party. Individuals contribute more when they perceive higher average contributions from own-party supporters in their area and contribute less if there is a higher share of own-party contributors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Voter participation rates vary widely across the 50 states. We seek to identify a source of this interstate variation, focusing upon the 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012 general elections. Of note is that the latter two general elections featured a minority (i.e., African-American) nominee for president from one of the major political parties. Within the context of the rational voter model, we hypothesize that the presence of a minority candidate atop the ticket will boost minorities' expected net benefits from voting, with the result that minority voter participation will be higher. Based on cross-sectional fixed-effects estimations, we find that states' voter participation rates were unaffected by the percent of the population that was either African-American or Hispanic for the 2000 and 2004 election cycles, while states' voter participation rates were positively related to the percent of the population that was either African-American or Hispanic for the 2008 and 2012 election cycles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scholars have emphasized the importance of an informed citizenry for a healthy democracy. As a result, research has examined whether campaign information fosters positive or negative democratic outcomes. This article examines the relationship between information seeking and skepticism. We also examine whether skepticism leads to democratically beneficial outcomes. We examine these relationships using survey data collected during the course of the 2012 Presidential Election. We found an over-time relationship between campaign information seeking and skepticism. We also found that skepticism leads to increased knowledge at the end of the election through information seeking. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research uses 2012 National Election Studies data to explore how parenthood shapes the public opinion of women and men. Our analyses show that being a parent shapes attitudes on issues directly connected to children, such as government funding for education and day care, but also on issues less connected to the day-to-day activities of parenting, including the appropriate role of government and abortion. While the label “Walmart Mom” captures the reality that a large and growing number of mothers are struggling economically, the effect of motherhood, on most issues, holds for all women, regardless of socioeconomic status. This article discusses the implications of our findings concerning the politics of motherhood and fatherhood in light of the changing structure of America’s families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines how a person's online use of social networking sites (SNS) for political reasons alters their involvement in politics. It mentions a nationally representative sample was used incorporating variables such as political orientation, offline political discussions, and evaluation of online social networks, which were detected in previous research. It comments on the successful use of SNS deployment strategy by the U.S. Democratic Party in the 2008 and 2012 presidential elections.

This exploratory, mixed-methods study uses data gathered during the previous U.S. presidential election in 2012 to evaluate student political engagement and digital culture. Survey results and media diary entries revealed that college students enrolled in a media literacy course during Super Tuesday or Election Day gravitated toward low-barrier political actions and expressive modes of citizenship, and they were most engaged when there was a social component to following election news. These results, coupled with recent data on political engagement and media consumption, present an opportunity to consider the role of digital platforms and online communities in the 2016 election. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As a key element of their strategy, recent Presidential campaigns have recruited thousands of workers to engage in direct voter contact. We conceive of this strategy as a principal-agent problem. Workers engaged in direct contact are intermediaries between candidates and voters, but they may be ill-suited to convey messages to general-election audiences. By analyzing a survey of workers fielded in partnership with the 2012 Obama campaign, we show that in the context of the campaign widely considered most adept at direct contact, individuals who were interacting with swing voters on the campaign’s behalf were demographically unrepresentative, ideologically extreme, cared about atypical issues, and misunderstood the voters’ priorities. We find little evidence that the campaign was able to use strategies of agent control to mitigate its principal-agent problem. We question whether individuals typically willing to be volunteer surrogates are productive agents for a strategic campaign. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The 2012 presidential election saw a 594% increase in independent expenditures from the 2008 election ($144 million in 2008 to $1 billion in 2012), leaving little doubt that the Supreme Court’s landmark 2010 Citizens United decision opened the campaign spending floodgates. To what extent are corporations, the main subject of the ruling, the source of the increase? We argue that while Citizens alters the ability of corporations to spend on campaigns, it may not alter their substantial risk in doing so. Utilizing an original dataset of political activity and campaign contributions by Fortune 500 companies, we explore whether Citizens United affected corporations’ overall contribution strategies. We find that major corporations were not a source of the dramatic increase in independent spending in the 2012 election and that their spending behavior more generally did not change as a result of the Citizens United ruling. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

At the outset of the 2012 presidential race, Republican candidate Mitt Romney touted his private sector leadership of the private equity firm Bain Capital. As this election unfolded, Romney's Bain Capital story became less of a narrative he could run on and more of a narrative he had to run from. Why did this Bain Capital story, a story about someone's success in the free marketplace in a society that seemingly values such success, become so troubling for the Romney campaign? This question constitutes the centerpiece of the present essay. In addressing this question, we argue that the Bain Capital narrative's role in the 2012 presidential race divulges a great deal about the fundamental nature of economic discourse in American democracy. Specifically, we contend that the economic narratives circulating in American democracy actually construct a tale of two economies--a tangible economy and a speculative economy. Unfortunately for Romney, his Bain Capital narrative situated him on the wrong side of this economic divide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Departing from accounts of minority group politics that focus on the role of group identity in advancing group members’ common interests, we investigate political decisions involving tradeoffs between group interests and simple self-interest. Using the case of black Americans, we investigate crystallized group norms about politics, internalized beliefs about group solidarity, and mechanisms for enforcing both through social pressure. Through a series of novel behavioral experiments that offer black subjects individual incentives to defect from the position most favored by black Americans as a group, we test the effects of social pressure to conform. We find that racialized social pressure and internalized beliefs in group solidarity are constraining and depress self-interested behavior. Our results speak to a common conflict—choosing between maximizing group interests and self-interest—and yet also offer specific insight into how blacks remain so homogeneous in partisan politics despite their growing ideological and economic variation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Published scholarship argues that a poor economy depresses voter participation in the United States. This troubling result suggests that incumbents are “underpenalized” for bad economic performance. We challenge this conclusion theoretically and empirically. Theoretically, we argue that a worsening economy has a disruptive effect that prods worried citizens to voice concern and seek remedies. Empirically, we analyze county-level data and find that, contrary to earlier studies, higher unemployment rates in fact stimulate more people to vote. We show that the effect is not the result of heightened electoral competition when unemployment is high. The relationship displays a partisan asymmetry in which Republican candidates are especially harmed by higher unemployment. The results also indicate that studies of economic voting need to consider the role of turnout in connecting economic performance to the incumbent’s vote share. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In presidential nomination contests, the number of voters participating in selecting the presidential candidates varies considerably across states. In the same election year, turnout in presidential nomination contests ranges from less than 1 % of party supporters participating in some caucuses to record breaking turnout levels upwards of 50 % in primaries in other states. This variation is attributable, in part, to the electoral rules, which vary across states, years, and parties. In this paper, I provide a comprehensive examination of the extent to which party and state rules affect voter turnout in nomination contests from 1980 to 2012. Using the normal partisan support score as the voter turnout denominator, I find that primaries, open contests, and proportional representation rules result in higher levels of turnout. I also show that within the window of competitiveness, turnout is higher in states that hold contests later in the nomination season. Overall, my analysis provides insight into the institutional structures that influence the number of people who participate in the presidential nomination process and enhances understanding about the factors that affect voter turnout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This report explores the variables related to partisan selective media exposure, a process by which people select media outlets and content consistent with their political predispositions. This study employs national survey data (N = 876) during the month of October 2012 immediately prior to the U.S. presidential election. Political orientation (i.e., liberal, moderate, or conservative) served as the dependent variable. The analysis revealed that political orientation was related to gender, race, and religion. The civic engagement variables of participation in a church project and participation in volunteer work within one’s community were also related. Finally, the results suggest that conservatives were most prone to use conservative talk radio, Christian radio and TV, and Fox News. Liberals were more prone to use PBS and Facebook. As such, the data indicate that audience members appear to seek out partisan media and messages consistent with their political leanings. The implications of partisan selective media exposure concerning the development of political knowledge are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This study explores the effects of televised presidential debate viewing on young citizens’ candidate evaluations and normative democratic attitudes, including political cynicism and political information efficacy. Findings revealed that debate viewing decreases young citizens’ political cynicism and strengthens political information efficacy. Longitudinal analysis tracked young citizens’ democratic attitudes from pre-debate to post-election, finding that one’s political information efficacy intensifies throughout the course of the ongoing campaign, but debates’ immediate effect of reducing political cynicism is not sustained as the campaign progresses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Promotion of the DREAM Act during the 2012 campaign presented an opportunity to examine how social media might cast youth as information leaders in the promotion of voting in Latino families. To identify opportunities and barriers to enactment of the information-leading role, we triangulate findings from a post-election survey of young adults and an analysis of campaign strategies focused on access to higher education. We find that young Latinos lagged behind non-Latinos in voting and in discussion about politics with parents and that campaign messaging typically ignored the family as a context for the cultivation of aspiration through information exchange. We conclude with recommendations for how mobilization efforts in future elections can harness new media by recruiting youth as information leaders. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Catholics have long been an important force in American electoral politics. Once a vital and loyal component of the New Deal Democratic coalition, Catholics in recent decades have shifted their political loyalties away from the Democratic Party to more of a partisan equilibrium. Indeed, by 2012, the White Catholic vote had become predominantly Republican, even in a year in which a Democrat was re-elected to the White House, and on balance party identification among these voters showed a slight Republican edge. Only the growing contingent of Latino Catholics kept the national vote of the entire religious community closely balanced. Despite widespread agreement among scholars that the partisan behavior of Catholics has changed, there is much less consensus on the nature of that change, its permanence, and its causes. We review the historic patterns of Catholic partisanship and voting behavior, discuss three major perspectives on electoral change among Catholics, and test these perspectives with data drawn from the 2012 National Survey of Religion and Politics, with a rich battery of religious measures. We find that socioeconomic factors, religious perspectives, and issue preferences among Catholics all influence partisanship and vote choice, reducing any true 'distinctiveness' of the 'Catholic vote.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Objective: We examined whether stable, county-level, voter preferences were significantly associated with county-level obesity prevalence using data from the 2012 US Presidential election. County voting preference for the 2012 Republican Party presidential candidate was used as a proxy for voter endorsement of personal responsibility approaches to reducing population obesity risk versus approaches featuring government-sponsored, multi-sectoral efforts like those recommended by the Centers for Disease Control Centers for Disease Control (CDC, 2009). Method: Cartographic visualization and spatial analysis were used to evaluate the geographic clustering of obesity prevalence rates by county, and county-level support for the Republican Party candidate in the 2012 U.S. presidential election. The spatial analysis informed the spatial econometric approach employed to model the relationship between political preferences and other covariates with obesity prevalence. Results: After controlling for poverty rate, percent African American and Latino populations, educational attainment, and spatial autocorrelation in the error term, we found that higher county-level obesity prevalence rates were associated with higher levels of support for the 2012 Republican Party presidential candidate. Conclusion: Future public health efforts to understand and reduce obesity risk may benefit from increased surveillance of this and similar linkages between political preferences and health risks. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Much academic debate has centered on the impact of new technologies on democracy. This study examines the effects of social media on political participation and candidate image evaluations in the first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses. Multivariate analyses show that social media have no effects on likelihood of caucus attendance but influence perceptions of candidate traits among the sample of Iowans drawn here. The study also addresses the role of traditional media as channels for political information during the caucuses. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper draws on a case study of celebrity campaigning during the 2012 US Presidential election to critically engage with the problem of how to understand and analyse the role of celebrity in contemporary democracy. In doing so, we draw on work that has considered how recent US politics has been underpinned by 'competing populisms'. These have sought to articulate, and performatively enact, different versions of 'the people' to achieve cultural identification and electoral endorsement. We argue that although it is important to understand how populist politics are produced and performed, a problem that arises in studies of celebrity politics is that, too often, these also adopt a populist approach. That is, a division between 'elites' and 'ordinary' (or 'everyday') people is simply assumed as a fundamental and given division in society, rather than as a particular articulation of society, and democracy, whose particular histories and contemporary formations require deeper investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

From 2008 to 2012, national voter turnout fell by over 3 percentage points, to 58.2% of the eligible voting population. This decrease reversed the trend of increasing turnout across the previous three presidential elections. Using aggregate data from official records, this article reviews turnout across time and across the states. Taking advantage of recently released individual-level data, it also explores the level of turnout and change in turnout by race and age. Turnout among Blacks and Whites seems to be going in different directions, with Black turnout exceeding White turnout for perhaps the second election in a row. Youth turnout remains low and decreased substantially from its 2008 level. These findings suggest the need for additional attention from the research community. The article concludes with a call for a shift in focus from the next quick fix to longer-term solutions that will establish and maintain an attachment to voting among the citizenry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyzes patterns of industrial structure and party competition in the 2012 presidential election. The analysis rests on a new and more comprehensive database that catches more of the myriad ways in which businesses and major investors make political contributions than previous studies do. By drawing on this unified database, the paper is able to show that both major parties depend on very large donors to a greater extent than past studies have estimated. The paper outlines the firm and sectoral bases of support for the major party nominees, as well as for Republican candidates who competed for their party's presidential nomination. The paper shows that President Barack Obama's support by big business was broader than hitherto recognized. A central conclusion is that the sectors most involved in the recent controversies over surveillance were among the president's strongest supporters. The paper also analyzes patterns of business support for the Tea Party in Congress, showing that certain parts of the business community are more supportive of Tea Party candidates than others. The role of climate change, financial regulation, and other issues in the election is discussed at length. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States has reached an unprecedented level of inequality in presidential elections. In 2012, only 10 states drew the major party presidential candidates for postconvention campaign events, and those same 10 states attracted 99.6% of all general election television advertising spending by the campaigns and their allies. The remaining 41 spectator states (counting the District of Columbia) included all 38 states that had been similarly overlooked in 2008. This article details these inequalities and their roots in state statutes allocating electoral votes on a winner-take-all basis. It argues that states should end this inequality by enacting the National Popular Vote interstate compact, which would ensure that it is the popular vote in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that determines who becomes the president. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses the Muslim population in the U.S. as a Democratic voting bloc in the 2012 elections which recognized Islam as a political issue. An overview of Muslims' and Islamist groups' participation in the American political process since 1996 and during the presidential administrations of Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama is presented. The article notes the views of various political candidates including Republicans Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney on Islamic law or Shari'a and jihad. Topics include the 2012 congressional campaigns that focused on the issue of Islamization and the political activity of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), an Islamist organization.

The article discusses religious freedom concerns voiced by the organization known as the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) during the 2012 U.S. presidential election. The article discusses the political significance of public statements and the publication of a document entitled "Fortnight of Freedom" by the USCCB upon the 2012 U.S. presidential election. The article examines the group's opposition to particular provisions of the legislation known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) championed by the administration of U.S. president Barack Obama, particularly U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandates concerning requirements of employers providing health care plans that include female sterilization services and contraception such as abortifacients.

This is a comparative study about how college students decide to vote in presidential elections in Boston and San Jose, Costa Rica. Specifically, the research investigated what cultural factors influenced college students to vote in the 2010 presidential election in Costa Rica and the 2012 presidential election in the United States. Given the lower level of political participation amongst youth in comparison to the rest of the population and a similar governmental form in Costa Rica and in the United States prove them to be comparable areas of study. The research is an analysis of both primary and secondary qualitative and quantitative sources obtained in both countries primarily during the 2012 calendar year. Between the two countries close to 200 students were surveyed and nearly 30 were interviewed in regards to the topic. The investigation has found that in both countries active, personal mobilizations of students prove to be effective in influencing college students to vote in elections. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

American trade unions are a crucial segment of civil society that enriches our democracy. Union members are stewards of the public good, empowering the individual through collective action and solidarity. While union density has declined, the U.S. labor movement remains a substantial political and economic force. But the relentless attacks by the political right and its corporate allies could lead to an erosion of civic engagement, further economic inequality, and a political imbalance of power that can undermine society. The extreme assault on unions waged by Republicans in Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan, and at a national level must be countered by a revitalized labor movement and by those who understand that unions are positive civil actors who bring together individuals who alone have little power. Unions need both structural reform and greater boldness; there are moments in which direct action and dramatic militancy can bring about positive social change. The current assault on labor can be rebuffed, and unions can expand their role as stewards for the public good and as defenders of efforts by the 99 percent to reduce inequality and protect democracy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To examine the effects of the 2008 Obama campaign’s targeted media effort aimed at Latino voters, we married 2008 campaign media data from multiple sources to survey data on registered Latino voters in Nevada and Arizona to examine the specific impact of advertisement buys on that population. In the presence of controls, Obama’s media spending advantage over McCain had a significant and positive relationship with an Obama vote. When looking at local broadcast, cable and radio specifically, we find a significant relationship between spending differentials on local broadcast advertising and vote intention but not between spending differentials on radio and cable buys. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective Assess Latino support past, present, and future for President Obama and his policies, and the role of the Latino vote in the 2012 election. Methods Examine Latino voting patterns, administrative decisions and legislation enacted by President Obama affecting Latinos, and Latino public opinion polls to evaluate potential support for Obama by Latinos. Results Despite disappointment and anger over immigration policy by President Obama, Latinos still indicate high levels of support for him and willingness to vote for him in the 2012 elections. Obama has demonstrated his commitment to issues salient to the Latino community in addition to appointing a large number of Latinos to top-ranking government positions. The influence of the Latino vote in 2012 is dependent on voter mobilization in competitive places. Conclusion Latinos in the 2012 election could play a significant role in the presidential race but also in congressional races if they turn out in high numbers in competitive places to ensure their numbers result in influence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The so-called 'red/blue paradox' is that rich individuals are more likely to vote Republican but rich states are more likely to support the Democrats. Previous research argued that this seeming paradox could be explained by comparing rich and poor voters within each state - the difference in the Republican vote share between rich and poor voters was much larger in low-income, conservative, middle-American states like Mississippi than in high-income, liberal, coastal states like Connecticut. We use exit poll and other survey data to assess whether this was still the case for the 2012 Presidential election. Based on this preliminary analysis, we find that, while the red/blue paradox is still strong, the explanation offered by Gelman et al. no longer appears to hold. We explore several empirical patterns from this election and suggest possible avenues for resolving the questions posed by the new data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on voter suppression tactics used in the 2012 U.S. presidential and congressional elections. Topics include the record levels of political participation by voters in the 2008 U.S. presidential elections, efforts to curtail voters' rights, and the anti-democratic efforts to stifle the votes of groups including African Americans, the poor, and young people.