Presented by Scott Althaus, Merriam Professor of Political Science
Professor, Communication
Director, Cline Center for Advanced Social Research
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 socio-political trends. If so, then what campaigners do and say might be entertaining, but should rarely have a decisive influence on who wins the White House. Yet because academic studies typically treat presidential elections as singular events, there is surprisingly little research that considers the strategies that parties pursue in presidential campaigning across multiple election years, how those strategies have evolved over time, or what difference those strategies might make on election day. Drawing on internal campaign records and novel data sources covering every presidential election from 1952 through 2020, this presentation explores the Electoral College strategies for every major presidential campaign in the modern era, illuminates what difference their state-by-state allocation of candidate visits and television spending made on election day, and considers implications for the future of American democracy.
Scott Althaus’ research explores the communication processes that support political accountability and that empower discontent in both democratic and non-democratic societies. His work with the Cline Center includes curating the world's largest registry of coups and attempted coups, authoritatively documenting police uses of lethal force in the United States, and developing new data resources for tracking protests, riots, and acts of political violence around the world. Most recently, he is co-author of Battleground: Electoral College Strategies, Execution, and Impact in the Modern Era (Oxford University Press, 2024).
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