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2004 presidential election: an introduction.
Presidential Studies Quarterly June 1, 2006 | Wattenberg, Martin P.
This special issue on the 2004 presidential election marks the second time that Presidential Studies Quarterly has devoted an issue to articles on the most recent election. This journal plans to make this a quadrennial tradition, recognizing the crucial importance of elections in the study of the presidency. Although scholars of the presidency naturally focus primarily on presidential actions, much of what presidents do is influenced by how they made it into the office. This issue covers some of the many aspects of who voted to reelect Bush and why. go to website 2012 presidential election
Whether one approves or disapproves of George W. Bush’s politics, his controversial handling of the job has proved to be a boon to the study of the presidency. The Bush presidency has certainly stimulated more public interest in politics, as evidenced by public participation in the 2004 presidential election. The first two articles in this issue address two important aspects of this phenomenon. First, Alan Abramowitz and Walter Stone examine the increase in election turnout and political activism in 2004. They argue that the polarization over George W. Bush’s presidency was largely responsible for the surge in public participation in electoral activities. Another aspect of participation in the election that increased markedly involved financial contributions to presidential campaigns. Costas Panagopoulos and Daniel Bergan compare 2000 and 2004 data from the Federal Election Commission and employ the National Election Studies to examine the types of people who contributed.
After every presidential election, analysts want to know the makeup of the party coalitions and how patterns of voting behavior are changing. Harold Stanley and Richard Niemi examine the nature of group support for the parties in 2004 and put these recent data into historical perspective. Kate Kenski and Russell Tisinger focus specifically on Hispanic voters, a topic of special interest given that the Hispanic population of the U.S. citizenry is projected to increase substantially in the coming decades. Two articles in this issue are devoted to the topic of voting behavior by religious groupings. The 2004 election was the first since 1960 to have a member of the Catholic faith nominated by one of the two major parties for president. Mark Gray, Paul Perl, and Mary Bendyna examine the Catholic vote in 2004 and show how Catholicism was much less related to the vote than during the Kennedy-Nixon contest of 1960. Although Catholics are no longer a distinct voting bloc, religion still plays a major role in voting behavior, as demonstrated in the comprehensive analysis of religious influences in the 2004 election by James Guth, Lyman Kellstedt, Corwin Smidt, and John Green.
No matter how small the margin, victorious presidential candidates typically claim a mandate for their policies. George W. Bush was no exception after the 2004 presidential election. As he said soon after his victory became certain, “When you win, there is … a feeling that the people have spoken and embraced your point of view.” Bush went on to remark that “I earned capital in this campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it.” The final three articles in this issue address questions concerning how much people knew about and approved of the presidential candidates’ key issue stands. Kate Kenski and Kathleen Hall Jamieson examine public knowledge of the candidates’ positions in 2004 and 2000, finding that voters were somewhat better informed in 2004. Ian McAllister takes an in-depth look at the impact of President Bush’s handling of the Iraq War. Philip Klinkner offers a broad overview of the role of foreign affairs, finding that attitudes on these questions were central to Bush’s victory and were unusually polarized compared to previous elections. go to web site 2012 presidential election
While these articles cover a lot of ground, they are just a start for this journal. Presidential Studies Quarterly will continue to offer analysis of the 2004 presidential election in its regular “Elections” feature, which appears in most issues. Submissions of articles on U.S. presidential elections, recent or distant past, are always welcome.
MARTIN P. WATTENBERG University of California, Irvine Martin P. Wattenberg is professor of political science at the University of California, Irvine. He is the author of a forthcoming book to be published by Longman entitled Is Voting for Young People? He is also the author of several books published by Harvard University Press: Where Have All the Voters Gone? (2002), The Decline of American Political Parties (1998), and The Rise of Candidate-Centered Politics (1991).
Wattenberg, Martin P.
