Words That Matter

Words That Matter

Author: Leticia Bode

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 2020-05-26

Total Pages: 276

ISBN-13: 0815731922

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How the 2016 news media environment allowed Trump to win the presidency The 2016 presidential election campaign might have seemed to be all about one man. He certainly did everything possible to reinforce that impression. But to an unprecedented degree the campaign also was about the news media and its relationships with the man who won and the woman he defeated. Words that Matter assesses how the news media covered the extraordinary 2016 election and, more important, what information—true, false, or somewhere in between—actually helped voters make up their minds. Using journalists' real-time tweets and published news coverage of campaign events, along with Gallup polling data measuring how voters perceived that reporting, the book traces the flow of information from candidates and their campaigns to journalists and to the public. The evidence uncovered shows how Donald Trump's victory, and Hillary Clinton's loss, resulted in large part from how the news media responded to these two unique candidates. Both candidates were unusual in their own ways, and thus presented a long list of possible issues for the media to focus on. Which of these many topics got communicated to voters made a big difference outcome. What people heard about these two candidates during the campaign was quite different. Coverage of Trump was scattered among many different issues, and while many of those issues were negative, no single negative narrative came to dominate the coverage of the man who would be elected the 45th president of the United States. Clinton, by contrast, faced an almost unrelenting news media focus on one negative issue—her alleged misuse of e-mails—that captured public attention in a way that the more numerous questions about Trump did not. Some news media coverage of the campaign was insightful and helpful to voters who really wanted serious information to help them make the most important decision a democracy offers. But this book also demonstrates how the modern media environment can exacerbate the kind of pack journalism that leads some issues to dominate the news while others of equal or greater importance get almost no attention, making it hard for voters to make informed choices.


Trumped

Trumped

Author: Larry Sabato

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2017-03-21

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 1442279400

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In 2016, Donald Trump broke almost all the rules of politics to win the Republican nomination and, even more improbably, to edge out heavily favored Hillary Clinton in one of the great upsets in presidential campaign history. In Trumped: The 2016 Election That Broke All the Rules, Larry Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley, leading experts in American politics, bring together respected journalists, analysts, and scholars to examine every facet of the stunning 2016 election and what its improbable outcome will mean for the nation moving forward under a Trump administration. In frank, accessible prose, each author offers insight that goes beyond the headlines and dives into the underlying forces and shifts that drove the election from its earliest developments to its dramatic conclusion as one of the greatest upsets in presidential campaign history. Trumped will be an indispensable read for political junkies and all students of American politics. Contributions by Alan Abramowitz, Matt Barreto, David Byler, Anthony Cilluffo, Rhodes Cook, Robert Costa, Ariel Edwards-Levy, Natalie Jackson, Kyle Kondik, Susan MacManus, Diana Owen, Ron Rapoport, Larry Sabato, Greg Sargent, Tom Schaller, Gary Segura, Geoffrey Skelley, Walter Stone, Michael Toner, Karen Trainer, Sean Trende, and Janie Valencia.


Identity Crisis

Identity Crisis

Author: John Sides

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2019-08-13

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 0691196435

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In this gripping in-depth account of the 2016 presidential election, authors Sides, Michael Tesler, and Lynn Vavreck reveal how Trump's victory was foreshadowed by changes in the Democratic and Republican coalitions that were driven by people's racial and ethnic identities.


What Happened

What Happened

Author: Hillary Rodham Clinton

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2017-09-12

Total Pages: 560

ISBN-13: 1501175572

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“An engaging, beautifully synthesized page-turner” (Slate). The #1 New York Times bestseller and Time #1 Nonfiction Book of the Year: Hillary Rodham Clinton’s most personal memoir yet, about the 2016 presidential election. In this “candid and blackly funny” (The New York Times) memoir, Hillary Rodham Clinton reveals what she was thinking and feeling during one of the most controversial and unpredictable presidential elections in history. She takes us inside the intense personal experience of becoming the first woman nominated for president by a major party in an election marked by rage, sexism, exhilarating highs and infuriating lows, stranger-than-fiction twists, Russian interference, and an opponent who broke all the rules. “At her most emotionally raw” (People), Hillary describes what it was like to run against Donald Trump, the mistakes she made, how she has coped with a shocking and devastating loss, and how she found the strength to pick herself back up afterward. She tells readers what it took to get back on her feet—the rituals, relationships, and reading that got her through, and what the experience has taught her about life. In this “feminist manifesto” (The New York Times), she speaks to the challenges of being a strong woman in the public eye, the criticism over her voice, age, and appearance, and the double standard confronting women in politics. Offering a “bracing... guide to our political arena” (The Washington Post), What Happened lays out how the 2016 election was marked by an unprecedented assault on our democracy by a foreign adversary. By analyzing the evidence and connecting the dots, Hillary shows just how dangerous the forces are that shaped the outcome, and why Americans need to understand them to protect our values and our democracy in the future. The election of 2016 was unprecedented and historic. What Happened is the story of that campaign, now with a new epilogue showing how Hillary grappled with many of her worst fears coming true in the Trump Era, while finding new hope in a surge of civic activism, women running for office, and young people marching in the streets.


Shattered

Shattered

Author: Jonathan J. M. Allen

Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)

Published: 2017

Total Pages: 482

ISBN-13: 0553447084

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An analysis of the bitter 2016 presidential election, told from the viewpoints of Hilary Clinton campaign insiders, reconstructs key decisions and missed opportunities cited as the cause of the election upset.


The Great Alignment

The Great Alignment

Author: Alan I. Abramowitz

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2018-06-19

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 0300235127

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Alan I. Abramowitz has emerged as a leading spokesman for the view that our current political divide is not confined to a small group of elites and activists but a key feature of the American social and cultural landscape. The polarization of the political and media elites, he argues, arose and persists because it accurately reflects the state of American society. Here, he goes further: the polarization is unique in modern U.S. history. Today’s party divide reflects an unprecedented alignment of many different divides: racial and ethnic, religious, ideological, and geographic. Abramowitz shows how the partisan alignment arose out of the breakup of the old New Deal coalition; introduces the most important difference between our current era and past eras, the rise of “negative partisanship”; explains how this phenomenon paved the way for the Trump presidency; and examines why our polarization could even grow deeper. This statistically based analysis shows that racial anxiety is by far a better predictor of support for Donald Trump than any other factor, including economic discontent.


Unprecedented

Unprecedented

Author: Thomas Lake

Publisher: Melcher Media Incorporated

Published: 2016

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781595910967

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Tells the story of the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in photos and essays by CNN contributors.


The Timeline of Presidential Elections

The Timeline of Presidential Elections

Author: Robert S. Erikson

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2012-08-24

Total Pages: 221

ISBN-13: 0226922162

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In presidential elections, do voters cast their ballots for the candidates whose platform and positions best match their own? Or is the race for president of the United States come down largely to who runs the most effective campaign? It’s a question those who study elections have been considering for years with no clear resolution. In The Timeline of Presidential Elections, Robert S. Erikson and Christopher Wlezien reveal for the first time how both factors come into play. Erikson and Wlezien have amassed data from close to two thousand national polls covering every presidential election from 1952 to 2008, allowing them to see how outcomes take shape over the course of an election year. Polls from the beginning of the year, they show, have virtually no predictive power. By mid-April, when the candidates have been identified and matched in pollsters’ trial heats, preferences have come into focus—and predicted the winner in eleven of the fifteen elections. But a similar process of forming favorites takes place in the last six months, during which voters’ intentions change only gradually, with particular events—including presidential debates—rarely resulting in dramatic change. Ultimately, Erikson and Wlezien show that it is through campaigns that voters are made aware of—or not made aware of—fundamental factors like candidates’ policy positions that determine which ticket will get their votes. In other words, fundamentals matter, but only because of campaigns. Timely and compelling, this book will force us to rethink our assumptions about presidential elections.


The Party Decides

The Party Decides

Author: Marty Cohen

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2009-05-15

Total Pages: 418

ISBN-13: 0226112381

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Throughout the contest for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination, politicians and voters alike worried that the outcome might depend on the preferences of unelected superdelegates. This concern threw into relief the prevailing notion that—such unusually competitive cases notwithstanding—people, rather than parties, should and do control presidential nominations. But for the past several decades, The Party Decides shows, unelected insiders in both major parties have effectively selected candidates long before citizens reached the ballot box. Tracing the evolution of presidential nominations since the 1790s, this volume demonstrates how party insiders have sought since America’s founding to control nominations as a means of getting what they want from government. Contrary to the common view that the party reforms of the 1970s gave voters more power, the authors contend that the most consequential contests remain the candidates’ fights for prominent endorsements and the support of various interest groups and state party leaders. These invisible primaries produce frontrunners long before most voters start paying attention, profoundly influencing final election outcomes and investing parties with far more nominating power than is generally recognized.


The Persuadable Voter

The Persuadable Voter

Author: D. Sunshine Hillygus

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2014-04-24

Total Pages: 268

ISBN-13: 1400831598

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The use of wedge issues such as abortion, gay marriage, and immigration has become standard political strategy in contemporary presidential campaigns. Why do candidates use such divisive appeals? Who in the electorate is persuaded by these controversial issues? And what are the consequences for American democracy? In this provocative and engaging analysis of presidential campaigns, Sunshine Hillygus and Todd Shields identify the types of citizens responsive to campaign information, the reasons they are responsive, and the tactics candidates use to sway these pivotal voters. The Persuadable Voter shows how emerging information technologies have changed the way candidates communicate, who they target, and what issues they talk about. As Hillygus and Shields explore the complex relationships between candidates, voters, and technology, they reveal potentially troubling results for political equality and democratic governance. The Persuadable Voter examines recent and historical campaigns using a wealth of data from national surveys, experimental research, campaign advertising, archival work, and interviews with campaign practitioners. With its rigorous multimethod approach and broad theoretical perspective, the book offers a timely and thorough understanding of voter decision making, candidate strategy, and the dynamics of presidential campaigns.