How the economy and partisanship shaped the 2012 presidential and congressional elections

Political Science Quarterly

Volumn 128, Issue 1, 2013, Pages 1-38

  Jacobson, Gary C ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84897953984     PISSN: 00323195     EISSN: 1538165X     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1002/polq.12004     Document Type: Article

References (34)

1. Jan Crawford, "Advisor: Romney Shellshocked by Loss," CBS News, 8 November 2012, accessed at http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57547239/adviser-romney-shellshocked-by-loss, 9 November 2012; Romney had prepared a victory speech but not a concession speech, and his campaign had scheduled a fireworks show in Boston harbor to celebrate their victory; see Glen Johnson, "Romney Had Fireworks Display Set for Election Night," The Boston Globe, accessed at http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2012/11/08/mitt-romney-planned-boston-harbor-fireworks-show-that-was-scotched-election-loss/Gylk1HhYln63NSzNdQo6LJ/story.html, 12 November 2012.
2. Noam Scheiber, "Exclusive: The Internal Polls That Made Romney Think He'd Win," The New Republic, accessed at http://www.tnr.com/blog/plank/110597/exclusive-the-polls-made-mitt-romney-think-hedwin#, 4 December 2012.
3. Jacobson, "Republican Resurgence," 34-37.
4. Robert Draper, "Building a Better Romney Bot," New York Times Magazine, 30 November 2011, accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/04/magazine/mitt-romney-bot.html?pagewanted=all, 4 November 2012.
5. Lynn Vavreck, The Message Matters: The Economy and Presidential Campaigns (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 39.
6. John Sides and Lynn Vavreck, The Gamble: Choice and Chance in the 2012 Presidential Election (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2013), chapter entitled "The Hand You're Dealt," available in advance on line at http://press.princeton.edu/chapters/s2_9920.pdf, accessed 22 November 2012.
7. Gary C. Jacobson, A Divider, Not a Uniter: George W. Bush and the American People, 2nd ed. (New York: Longman, 2011), 4-6.
8. Alyssa Brown, "Democrats, Independents, Boost Economic Confidence," 6 November 2012, accessed at http://www.gallup.com/poll/158528/democrats-independents-boost-economic-confidence.aspx, 10 November 2012.
9. "Record Partisan Gap in Views of Economic News," Pew Research Center for the People and Press, 11 September 2012, accessed at http://www.people-press.org/2012/09/11/record-partisan-gap-in-views-ofeconomic-news, 5 December 2012; for an analysis of how party shapes responses to economic conditions across and within presidential administrations, see Peter K. Enns and Gregory E. McAvoy, "The Role of Partisanship in Aggregate Opinion," Political Behavior 34 (December 2012): 627-651.
10. Vavreck, The Message Matters, 32-35.
11. Samuel Kernell, Gary C. Jacobson, and Thad Kousser, The Logic of American Politics, 5th ed. (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2012), 577.
12. Michael Luo and Mike McIntyre, "Offshore Tactics Helped Increase Romney's Wealth," The New York Times, 1 October 2012, accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/us/politics/bains-offshorestrategies-grew-romneys-wealth.html?pagewanted=all, 12 October 2012.
13. Julian Zelizer, "Gingrich's Attacks Now Could Help Obama Later," CNN, 16 January 2012, accessed at http://www.cnn.com/2012/01/16/opinion/zelizer-romney-weakness/index.html, 6 December 2012.
14. Tom Benning, "Democratic Groups Revive Rick Perry's Old Attacks to Demand that Mitt Romney Release his Tax Returns," Dallas Morning News, 13 July 2012, accessed at http://trailblazersblog.dallasnews.com/2012/07/democratic-groups-revive-rick-perrys-old-attacks-to-demand-that-mitt-romney-release-his-taxreturns.html, 6 December 2012.
15. Robert Frank, "Romney's Top Ten Wealth Gaffes," The Wall Street Journal, 12 February 2012, accessed at http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2012/02/28/romneys-top-10-wealth-gaffes, 6 December 2012.
16. Reid J. Epstein, "The Disappearing Undecided Voter," Politico, 9 August 2012, accessed at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0812/79504.html, 9 December 2012.
17. Rebecca Sinderbrand, "Analysis: Obama Won With a Better Ground Game," CNN Politics, 7 November 2012, accessed at http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/analysis-why-obama-won/index.html, 9 December 2012.
18. Gregory Giroux, "Bloomberg by the Numbers: $2.23 bln," 12 December 2012, accessed at http://go.bloomberg.com/political-capital/2012-12-12/bloomberg-by-the-numbers-2-23-bln, 12 December 2012; on the advantage of controlling your own spending, see Jeremy W. Peters, Nicholas Confessore, and Sarah Cohen, "Obama is Even in TV AD Race Despite PACS," The New York Times, 28 October 2012, accessed at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/29/us/politics/obama-is-even-in-tv-ad-race-despite-pacs.html, 10 December 2012.
19. Sara Murray and Patrick O'Connor, "How Race Slipped Away From Romney," The Wall Street Journal, 8 November 2012, accessed at online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142412788-7324073504578105340729306074.html, 11 December 2012; Tom Hamburger, "Romney Spent More on TV Ads, Got Less," The Washington Post, 12 December 2012, accessed at http://www.washingtonpost.com/?nid=top_news&reload=true, 12 December 2012.
20. Vavreck, The Message Matters, 33-35 and 164-166.
21. Robert S. Erikson and Christopher Wlezien, The Timeline of Presidential Campaigns: How Campaigns Do (and Do Not) Matter (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 2012), chap. 6.
22. Gary C. Jacobson, "Terror, Terrain, and Turnout: Explaining the 2002 Midterm Elections," Political Science Quarterly 118 (Spring 2003): 9-10.
23. Gary C. Jacobson, The Politics of Congressional Elections, 8th ed. (New York: Pearson, 2013), 17-19.
24. David Wasserman, "Introducing the 2012 Cook Political Report Partisan Vote Index," The Cook Political Report, 11 October 2012, accessed at http://cookpolitical.com/house/pvi, 15 October 2012.
25. Jacobson, Politics of Congressional Elections, 227.
26. Gary C. Jacobson, "The Congress: Partisanship and Polarization," in Michael Nelson, ed., The Elections of 2012(Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2013), 154-160.
27. Molly Ball, "Obama's Edge: The Ground Game That Could Put Him Over the Top," The Atlantic, 12 October 2012, accessed at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/obamas-edge-theground-game-that-could-put-him-over-the-top/264031/, 23 November 2012; Dana Davidsen, "McDonnell: 'They Beat Us on the Ground,"' CNN Politicalticker, accessed at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/obamas-edge-the-ground-game-that-could-put-him-over-the-top/264031, 23 November 2012 (McDonnell is the Republican governor of Virginia).
28. Gary C. Jacobson, "Partisan Polarization in Presidential Support: The Electoral Connection," Congress and the Presidency 30 (Spring 2003): 8-11.
29. Jonathan Weisman, "Boehner Digs In on Opposition to Tax Hikes for the Wealthy," The New York Times, 9 November 2012, accessed at http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/boehner-digs-in-on-opposition-to-tax-hikes-for-wealthy/, 10 November 2012.
30. Keith Poole estimates that the ideological differences between the Senate parties, measured by DW Nominate scores, will increase from .773 to .826 in the new Congress; blog dated 13 November 2012, accessed at http://voteview.com/blog/, 25 November 2012.
31. Albert Hunt, "Republicans' Hispanic Problem Is With Party Base," Bloomberg News, 18 November 2012, accessed at http://www.bloomberg.com/news/print/2012-11-18/republican-hispanic-problem-is-with-party-base, 19 November 2012.
32. Jacobson, "Republican Resurgence," 39.
33. Gary C. Jacobson, "The President, the Tea Party, and the Voting Behavior in 2010: Insights From the Cooperative Congressional Election Study," presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Seattle, Washington, 1-4 September 2011; Gary C. Jacobson, "Polarization, Public Opinion and the Presidency: The Obama and Anti-Obama Coalitions," in Bert A. Rockman, Andrew Rudalevige, and Colin Campbell, eds., The Obama Presidency: Appraisals and Prospects (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 2012), 105.
34. Jacobson, Politics of Congressional Elections, 30-35.