Seth C. McKee

The Electoral College, Mobilization, and Turnout in the 2000 Presidential Election

This study takes a two-stage approach to examining the impact of the electoral college on turnout in the 2000 presidential election. First, we examine whether battleground states received more media spending and visits by the candidates and their party committees compared to nonbattleground states. Second, we examine whether media spending and candidate visits were related to state-level turnout. The results of the project show that the battleground states did receive significantly more media expenditures and candidate visits from the two major party campaigns than nonbattleground states. Furthermore, when controlling for state-level contextual and political factors, the more media expenditures and candidate visits a state received the higher the state turnout. Finally, the analysis reveals that state battleground status indirectly impacted state-level turnout through its effect on media spending and candidate visits.

A Principle or a Strategy? Voter Identification Laws and Partisan Competition in the American States

We undertake a comprehensive examination of restrictive voter ID legislation in the American states from 2001 through 2012. With a dataset containing approximately one thousand introduced and nearly one hundred adopted voter ID laws, we evaluate the likelihood that a state legislature introduces a restrictive voter ID bill, as well as the likelihood that a state government adopts such a law. Voter ID laws have evolved from a valence issue into a partisan battle, where Republicans defend them as a safeguard against fraud while Democrats indict them as a mechanism of voter suppression. However, voter ID legislation is not uniform across the states; not all Republican-controlled legislatures have pushed for more restrictive voter ID laws. Instead, our findings show it is a combination of partisan control and the electoral context that drives enactment of such measures. While the prevalence of Republican lawmakers strongly and positively influences the adoption of voter ID laws in electorally competitive states, its effect is significantly weaker in electorally uncompetitive states. Republicans preside over an electoral coalition that is declining in size; where elections are competitive, the furtherance of restrictive voter ID laws is a means of maintaining Republican support while curtailing Democratic electoral gains.

Rural Voters and the Polarization of American Presidential Elections

In political science, urban politics is a well-established subfield. And more recently, suburban political behavior has received a fair amount of attention (Gainsborough 2001 ; 2005 ; McKee and Shaw 2003 ; Oliver 2001 ). But with a few exceptions (see Francia and Baumgartner 2005–2006 ; Gimpel and Karnes 2006 ), the political behavior of rural residents has been conspicuously absent thus far in a growing literature on the political role of place. This is quite surprising given the clamoring in the popular press about “red states” versus “blue states” in the most recent presidential contests. All of the post-presidential election maps that highlight red Republican counties and blue Democratic counties display a sea of red covering the vast swaths of rural, middle America. The ocean of Republican red is enough to make one ask: Whats the Matter with Kansas? (Frank 2004 )—one of those thinly populated plains states with hardly a glimmer of blue on a county-level map of the 2004 presidential election.

What Made Carolina Blue? In-Migration and the 2008 North Carolina Presidential Vote

In this article, we examine the role that in-migration played in contributing to the 2008 Democratic presidential victory in North Carolina. Prior to Barack Obama, the last time the Tar Heel State was carried by a Democrat was Jimmy Carter in 1976. Since the late 1980s, North Carolina has undergone tremendous demographic change. In addition to a growing Hispanic population that is primarily comprised of noncitizens, the state has witnessed a very large increase in the number of residents who were born and raised in Northern states such as New York. Historically, in much of the postwar South, Northern migrants helped grow the Republican Party. We find that in North Carolina this pattern no longer holds. In contemporary North Carolina, migrants born outside the South are more likely to identify and register as politically unaffiliated, and their growing share of the state’s electorate directly contributed to Obama’s narrow win.

Redistricting and Familiarity With U.S. House Candidates

Redistricting has the effect of placing numerous voters into districts with a different incumbent seeking reelection. This event brings up an important question that has not been empirically tested: Are redrawn individuals, those who have a new incumbent because of redistricting, less likely to know who their new representative is? Furthermore, is there a difference in the rates of recall and recognition of challengers as a consequence of redistricting? This research note examines the influence of redistricting on recall and recognition of U.S. House candidates with use of the American National Elections Studies panel surveys for the 1992 and 2002 elections. Whether the measure is recall or recognition, redrawn respondents are significantly less likely to identify their incumbent as compared with individuals with the same incumbent seeking reelection. In contrast, with the exception of candidate name recall in 1992, redistricting does not affect the likelihood of identifying House challengers. This study demonstrates that redistricting constitutes another institutional feature of the American electoral system that raises the costs of political information because redrawn constituents are less familiar with their new representative.

Achieving Validation Barack Obama and Black Turnout in 2008

In this study we examine black voting in the 2008 presidential election. Recognizing the significance of having an African American win the presidency, we evaluate black political attitudes in 2008 vis-à-vis 2004, place black turnout in historical context, and discuss the problem of vote overreporting. The issue of vote overreporting plagues surveys, and this is particularly notable among African American respondents. The momentousness of Barack Obama’s candidacy and subsequent election may further complicate black turnout responses. On the one hand, an African American Democratic presidential nominee is expected to mobilize blacks, but on the other hand this situation is also expected to increase the social desirability to misreport voting. To get around this intractable problem with surveys, we evaluate validated black turnout in the state of Georgia, which provides individual-level data on the population of registered voters. The validated black turnout numbers are much lower than those reported in national studies like the Current Population Survey, but our analysis indicates that compared to 2004, African American registration and voting in Georgia were markedly higher in 2008.

Politics is local: State legislator voting on restrictive voter identification legislation

The marked increase in restrictive voter identification (ID) laws since the 2010 elections reveals the extreme partisan polarization in those state legislatures advancing this reform. Unlike previous studies that examine state-level factors expected to influence passage of restrictive voter ID bills, this study is the first to investigate the question using the state legislator as the unit of analysis. Multivariate analysis of the voting behavior of state legislators shows which kinds of district-level factors increase or decrease their likelihood of supporting stricter voter ID laws. Given the differentiable coalitions favoring Democratic and Republican candidates, certain partisan-aligned district demographics influence state lawmaker support for restrictive voter ID legislation. Race in particular is a major cleavage conditioning support for restrictive voter ID laws. Unlike the mixed findings generated by macro-level studies, this article provides convincing evidence that the size of the black district population negatively influences the likelihood that a Democratic legislator votes in favor of a restrictive voter ID bill, but positively affects the probability that a Republican lawmaker votes yes. The findings in this study illuminate the contextual factors that influence legislator voting on this salient election reform.

Political Conditions and the Electoral Effects of Redistricting

Redistricting can have considerable electoral consequences because it undermines the incumbency advantage. Numerous voters are drawn into districts with a different incumbent seeking reelection. With regard to vote choice, these redrawn constituents rely more on their partisanship and prevailing political conditions because they lack familiarity with their new representative. Macropartisanship, the aggregate party identification of the electorate, is an excellent barometer of the political climate and hence the partisan direction guiding voters. Because redrawn constituents have at best a tenuous bond with their new incumbent, partisan tides have more influence on their vote choice. Analyses of the 1992 and 2002 U.S. House elections show that higher district percentages of redrawn constituents significantly reduced the vote shares of southern Democratic representatives in 1992 and Democratic incumbents regardless of region in 2002. Given the stated behavioral implications associated with redistricting, these findings speak to the political conditions occurring at the time of these respective elections: a Republican realignment picking up steam in the South in 1992 and a short-term national GOP tide in the first post-9/11 midterm.

The Determinants of State Legislator Support for Restrictive Voter ID Laws

We examine state legislator behavior on restrictive voter identification (ID) bills from 2005 to 2013. Partisan polarization of state lawmakers on voter ID laws is well known, but we know very little with respect to other determinants driving this political division. A major shortcoming of extant research evaluating the passage of voter ID bills stems from using the state legislature as the unit of analysis. We depart from existing scholarship by using the state legislator as our unit of analysis, and we cover the entirety of the period when restrictive voter ID laws became a frequent agenda item in state legislatures. Beyond the obviously significant effect of party affiliation, we find a notable relationship between the racial composition of a member’s district, region, and electoral competition and the likelihood that a state lawmaker supports a voter ID bill. Democratic lawmakers representing substantial black district populations are more opposed to restrictive voter ID laws, whereas Republican legislators with substantial black district populations are more supportive. We also find Southern lawmakers (particularly Democrats) are more opposed to restrictive voter ID legislation. In particular, we find black legislators in the South are the least supportive of restrictive voter ID bills, which is likely tied to the historical context associated with state laws restricting electoral participation. Finally, in those state legislatures where electoral competition is not intense, polarization over voter ID laws is less stark, which likely reflects the expectation that the reform will have little bearing on the outcome of state legislative contests.

Late to the parade: Party switchers in contemporary US southern legislatures

We undertake an examination of southern state legislators who changed their party affiliation between 1992 and 2012. Not surprisingly, the vast majority went from being Democrats to Republicans, and this change has fuelled the dynamics at the national level by pulling the Republican Party further to the right and Democrats to the left. Hence, these are the incumbent party switchers we evaluate. With the use of constituency, electoral and contextual data on both switchers and non-switchers, we assess which factors influence the likelihood that a Democratic office-holder will switch to the GOP (Grand Old Party). We find that the typical demographic correlates of southern Republicanism, such as race and education, do indeed have a significant effect on the probability of the GOP label being adopted. In addition, the disruptive effect of redistricting induces switches, as does a change in the party of the elected governor. However, electoral pressure does not have an independent effect on party switching. Our results suggest that party switching is a response to several district-level factors as well as the broader political context within the state. We conclude with a discussion of why increasing partisan polarization and the maturation of the southern GOP is likely to forestall future party switching.