Misreporting: Social Scientists, Political Commentators, and the Politics of Presidential Selection

A familiar framework for interpreting the politics of presidential nomination, built on an accumulating body of social science research plus the extended observations of experienced commentators, received remarkably little use in the day-to-day reportage of the Democratic and Republican contests of 2016 and 2020 as they unfolded. So this paper begins by sketching out the factional structure of the modern Democratic and Republican parties, along with the bandwagon dynamic that recurrently resolves their factional disputes. It then applies these foundational interpretive factors to the two most recent pairs of nominating contests. What results are four orthodox and recurrent stories that stand in sharp contrast to media narratives that were all too frequently a mix of incomplete basic understandings plus wildly overemphasized idiosyncrasies.

Maintaining Cohesion

This chapter considers another set of justifications about the electoral college—this time based on maintaining the harmony and cohesion of the Republic. Instead of emphasizing what the electoral college does for the country, advocates call attention to alleged harm that alternative methods of presidential selection, especially direct election, would cause the nation. To begin, defenders of the electoral college charge that direct election of the president would encourage electoral fraud and vote recounts, sow national disharmony, and deny the president a mandate for governing. Most supporters of the electoral college also maintain that it is an essential bulwark of federalism and that electing the president directly would undermine the entire federal system. The chapter thus examines these charges and explores whether the electoral college actually has the benefits its advocates claim for it.