The 2016 United States elections were held on Tuesday, November 8, 2016. During this presidential election year, a President of the United States and Vice President were elected. In addition, all 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives and 34 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate were be contested. 13 state and territorial governorships and numerous other state and local elections will also be contested. More...
That America has become more politically polarized in recent decades is a widely accepted notion, and though some observers dispute aspects of this trend, political scientists have found strong overall evidence to support it.
Campaign observers and citizens often complain about the effects of negative ads and their perceived damage to deliberative democracy. But the reality may be more complicated, and the true results of such ads may depend on more than just their emotional or critical tone.
How do negative campaigns affect voters? It’s a question political scientists have studied for decades.
Among the most consequential — and controversial — roll-call votes that members of Congress cast during President Obama’s first term were those on cap-and-trade legislation, the economic stimulus and, of course, health care reform. How these votes subsequently affected legislators who ran for reelection in 2010 is of acute interest both to political scientists who study the interplay between votes and election consequences, and to campaign observers who are assessing the reverberations of these votes.
The uses of science and its policy implications have always been filtered through American politics, but survey research has noted what some call an increasing “crisis of trust” in the core findings of science itself.
