Elections

Question 1

How many members are there in the House and how many are in the Senate?

Answer 1

There are 435 members in the House and 100 in the Senate.

Question 2

In the Years 1982-2020 how many senators/representatives have been defeated in congressional primaries?

Answer 2

Only 8 Senators and 80 House members were defeated in Congressional Primaries.

Question 3

In 2020 what was the re-election rate to the House?

Answer 3

The Re-election rate in 2020 was 92%.

Question 4

Give 2 examples of people losing re-election to the House in the 2022 Midterms?

Answer 4

Democrat Cindy Axne lost to Republican Zach Nunn. - Iowa 3.
Republican Steve Chabot lost to Democrat Greg Landsman - Ohio 1.

Question 5

What was the only change to the composition of the Senate after the 2022 Midterms.

Answer 5

Democrat John Fetterman defeated Republican Mehmet Oz after the previous Republican Senator resigned - Pennsylvania.

Question 6

What is the Coat Tails effect and give a notable example of it?

Answer 6

The Coat tails effect is where the popularity of the presidential candidate boosts the vote of members of Congress running for election. For example in 1980 Reagan received 33 extra seats in the House and 8 in the Senate.

Question 7

How many Seats in the House of Representatives did Joe Biden lose in the 2022 Midterms?

Answer 7

He lost 9 Seats therefore, making the Republicans the majority party in the House.

Question 8

What does the 22nd Amendment set out?

Answer 8

That a President is limited to two terms.

Question 9

What are Key aspects of Invisible Primaries?

Answer 9

Candidates are announced - e.g. RFK, Ron De Santis.
Increasing Name Recognition - Vivek Ramaswawmy using instagram heavily for his campaign.
Fundraising - RFK attempting to raise money for an independent campaign.
Intra Party TV debates - Trump not present at any of them.

Question 10

How much have Joe Biden and Donald Trump raised so far?

Answer 10

Donald Trump - $60 million.
Joe Biden - $56.8 million.

Question 11

What were the results of the Republican Iowa 2024 Caucus?

Answer 11

Donald Trump - 51% of the vote, 20 delegates.
Ron De Santis - 21.3% of the vote, 9 delegates.
Nikki Haley - 19.1% of the vote, 8 delegates.

Question 12

What were the results of the Republican New Hampshire 2024 Primaries?

Answer 12

Donald Trump - 54.4% of the vote, 13 delegates.
Nikki Haley - 43.3% of the vote, 9 delegates.

Question 13

What were the results of the Democratic New Hampshire 2024 Primaries?

Answer 13

Joe Biden - 63.8% of the vote.
Dean Philips - 19.7% of the vote.

Question 14

What did the 1998 McGovern Fraser reforms do?

Answer 14

Prior to the reforms being made candidates were decided through State based Party Conventions which did not involve the Public however, this was deemed undemocratic.

Question 15

What was the turnout in the 2024 Republican Iowa caucus?

Answer 15

The turnout was 15% of registered Republicans in Iowa.

Question 16

What was the turnout of the 2020 Presidential election?

Answer 16

66.3% which is relatively high for the US.

Question 17

What is a brokered convention and give the most recent example of it?

Answer 17

A brokered convention is where no candidate reaches the majority threshold which therefore allows delegates to become free agents. The most recent example of this was in 1952 when Eisenhower had 595 out of the 1’206 required.

Question 18

What Formal functions do the conventions serve?

Answer 18

They are used to chose the presidential candidate however, the results are often already known beforehand.
Chose the Vice President however, this is now defunct.
Set out the party platform for the election, major area of contention between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in 2016.

Question 19

What informal functions do the conventions serve?

Answer 19

Promoting party unity - Vicious personal battles can often break out which need to be healed. E.g. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Enthusing the Party Faithful - Great opportunity to rally the party around the candidate.
Enthusing the Electorate - Maximum media impact can make the electorate feel more involved.
Post Convention Bounce - Often after a convention the candidates poll rating will drastically increase.

Question 20

Give 3 examples of the number of Electoral College votes a state is worth?

Answer 20

The state of California is worth 54 and Texas is worth 40 whilst states such as Wyoming and South Dakota are only worth 3.

Question 21

What are issues surrounding the electoral college?

Answer 21

They are very much unnecessary as they were developed when the US was first founded.

They are able to undermine the Popular vote as proven in 2016 when Hillary Clinton won 4 million more votes than Trump but he won more EC votes.

They are very much disproportionate as one EC vote in Wyoming is worth 190’000 voters whilst one EC vote in California is worth 700’000 votes.

There is also an issue surrounding faithless electors who vote for who they want rather than what the popular vote says. For example in the 2016 Presidential election there we 7 faithless electors who voted for people such as Bernie Sanders.