Small power : how local parties shape elections / David Doherty, Conor M. Dowling and Michael G. Miller.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Doherty, David, author.

Dowling, Conor M., author.

Miller, Michael G., author.

Series:

Oxford scholarship online.

Oxford scholarship online

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Political party organization.

Political campaigns--United States.

Political campaigns.

Elections--United States.

Elections.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (319 pages)

Place of Publication:

New York, New York : Oxford University Press, [2022]

Summary:

The authors examine an important, but understudied, aspect of American political parties: the local organizations that are responsible for increasing the party's community visibility, recruiting first-time candidates, and providing the crucial labor that campaigns use to mobilize voters. This book argues that despite overseeing small geographies, the leaders of these local parties wield significant power in American politics to shape statewide and federal campaigns.

Contents:

Cover

Small Power: How Local Parties Shape Elections

Copyright

Acknowledgments

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Part I: Local Party Organizations and the Electoral Landscape

1: Introduction

1.1 Chapter Outline

2: Local Parties and Their Leaders

2.1 How Parties Organize

2.2 Data Sources for Local Party Chairs

2.2.1 Survey of Local Party Chairs

2.2.2 Interviews with Local Party Chairs

2.3 Becoming a Chair

2.4 Who Are the Chairs?

2.4.1 Length of Involvement in Politics

2.4.2 Age

2.4.3 Gender

2.4.4 Race/Ethnicity

2.4.5 Education

2.4.6 Income

2.5 Conclusion

3: What Do Local Party Chairs Do?

3.1 The Size of the Job

3.1.1 Resources

The Party Office

Additional Personnel

3.2 Building the Party

3.2.1 Finding Bodies

3.2.2 The E-Party

3.2.3 The Youth Vote

3.2.4 Community Visibilit

3.3 Organizing in Elections

3.4 Conclusion

4: Chairs and Candidates: Recruiting and Support

4.1 Survey Results: Recruiting

4.2 Recruiting: What Chairs Told Us

4.2.1 Passive Recruiting

4.2.2 Active Recruiting

The Farm Team

Filling the Ballot

4.3 Who Do They Look For?

4.3.1 Where to Look

4.3.2 Vetting

4.4 Supporting Candidates

4.4.1 Hand-Holding

4.4.2 Formal Training

4.4.3 Making Connections

Donors

Mobilizing Voters

4.5 Conclusion

5: Local Parties and Election Outcomes

5.1 Local Party Activity and Local Election Outcomes

5.1.1 Estimating the Electoral Consequences of Local Party Activity

5.2 The Role of Local Party Organizations in Presidential Elections

5.3 Local Party Activity and Federal Election Outcomes

5.4 Conclusion

Part II: How Chairs View Candidates

6: Introduction to Part II

6.1 The Conjoint Experiments

6.2 Benefits of Conjoint Designs

6.3 How We Analyze the Data.

6.4 How Should We Interpret Chairs' Choices?

7: Money, Commitment, and Community Ties

7.1 Commitment and Political Savvy

7.1.1 Party Ties

7.1.2 Experimental Evidence: Effects of Political and Military Experience

7.2 Community Roots

7.2.1 Experimental Evidence: Community Roots

Family Structure

7.3 Fundraising

7.3.1 Experimental Evidence: Occupatio

7.4 Conclusion

8: Candidate Gender

8.1 Are Women Candidates Disadvantaged?

8.2 Does Candidate Gender Matter?

8.3 Why Would Women Candidates be More Viable?

8.3.1 An Affinity Effect?

8.3.2 Hard Work

8.3.3 Candidate Quality

8.3.4 Viewpoint Diversity

8.3.5 Motherhood

8.4 The Skeptics

8.4.1 Gender and "Toughnesss"

8.4.2 #MeToo and Regionality

8.5 Conclusion

9: Candidate Race and Ethnicity

9.1 Top-Level Experimental Results

9.2 Perceptions of Quality

9.3 Group Attitudes

9.3.1 Countywide Attitudes

9.4 Group Affinity

9.4.1 County Demographics

9.5 Returning to the Interviews: Regional Differences

9.6 Recruiting Minority Candidates

9.7 Conclusion

10: Candidates' Policy Dispositions

10.1 The Importance of Issues

10.2 Disposition toward Compromise

10.2.1 How Democratic Chairs View Compromise

10.2.2 How Republican Chairs View Compromise

10.3 The Role of Policy Positions

Economic Policy Positions

Social Policy Positions

10.4 What Accounts for Party Chair/Primary Voter Rifts?

10.4.1 Do Chairs' Assessments Vary across Contexts?

A Pro-Gun "Issue Public"?

10.5 Conclusion

11: Small Power

11.1 The Implications of Local Political Dynamics

11.2 Directions for Future Work

Appendix

Additional Analysis

Do Effects of Policy Positions Vary with County Characteristics

Notes

Notes to Chapter 2

Notes to Chapter 3

Notes to Chapter 5

Notes to Chapter 6

Notes to Chapter 7.

Notes to Chapter 8

Notes to Chapter 9

Notes to Chapter 10

Notes to Chapter 11

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Also issued in print: 2022.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

Other Format:

Print version: Doherty, David Small Power

ISBN:

0-19-760504-4

0-19-760502-8