Timeline of Presidential Elections – How Campaigns Do (and Do Not) Matter

With the 2012 presidential election upon us, will voters cast their ballots for the candidates whose platforms and positions best match their own? Or will the race for the next president of the United States come down largely to who runs the most effective campaigning? 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.

"This is an important, original book by accomplished political scientists at the top of their game. Robert S. Erikson and Christopher Wlezien have addressed a central question in the study of presidential elections - to what extent do the actual campaigns matter? - and provided an account of election dynamics that anyone with a passing knowledge of presidential elections can understand, but whose technical sophistication will be appreciated by political scientists. The Timeline of Presidential Elections will be regarded as a landmark by the presidential research community." (Gary C. Jacobson, University of California, San Diego)"

Robert S. Erikson is professor of political science at Columbia University and the author or coauthor of several books, including The Macro Polity. Christopher Wlezien is professor of political science at Temple University and coauthor of Degrees of Democracy, among other books.