Part I
Anthony Downs in 1957 put forward a rational calculus of voting, which has inspired later works on the same. His significant conclusion was that a rational voter must never bother to vote. This conclusion of Downs, reallocated the concentration of contemporary political scientists from the explanation of why people do not vote to the explanation of why they do. It is referred to as the Downs Model or Median Voter Model (Downs 1957).
As the chief campaign strategist, recommendation of visiting the states of Ohio and Nevada would be put forward. As per results, Ohio has the maximum number of moderate voters. The numbers are quite high for this state, rated 9.5 in prevalence. The state also has a good estimate of advantage in the week prior to the elections, with 3.6 in percentage points. In the context of the Median Voter Model, for winning the election, the voters have to see the candidates on a left-to-right continuum. Moreover, the voters choose the candidates whose views are the closest to their own (Portmann and Stadelmann 2013). In the United States, both the Democratic and Republican parties have primaries, in which the party members select the extremists from their respective party (Sinclair 2014). In such cases, most of the times, the running candidates in the primaries would reveal themselves as somewhat being more extremist in their demonstrations for satisfying the voters, as voting in the primaries is generally limited to party affiliates. Subsequently, the winning candidates put forward more moderate stances as means of appealing to voters counted in the other party. So visiting Ohio would prove profitable for the campaign as the maximum number of people are voters and winning their confidence would secure a huge number of votes for the party. Apart from that the next state can definitely be Nevada. It has a high rating of moderates’ prevalence, second to Ohio, and the second highest percentage in estimated advantage, after Wisconsin. Colorado has the lowest rating of prevalence of moderates and almost a poor estimated advantage in the week before election. In case of lowest estimated advantage, Florida scores a straight 0, making both Colorado and Florida not so beneficial of the states to visit.
|
Difference |
Obama Visits |
Romney Visits |
|
|
Colorado |
2.2 |
0.3 |
0.22 |
|
Florida |
0.9 |
0.1 |
0.09 |
|
Iowa |
2.4 |
0.3 |
0.24 |
|
Nevada |
2.1 |
0.3 |
0.21 |
|
New |
2.3 |
0.3 |
0.23 |
|
Hampshire |
|||
|
North |
-0.5 |
-0.07 |
-0.05 |
|
Carolina |
|||
|
Ohio |
-1.7 |
-0.2 |
0.17 |
|
Virginia |
1 |
0.1 |
0.1 |
|
Wisconsin |
1.2 |
0.1 |
0.12 |
As shown in the above drafted chart, the visits have paid off in certain places and in the other places it did not. The case is same for both, no clean win happened. As depicted by the table, visiting Virginia did not give the expected results for Obama. In all the states, the visits produced almost equal results, the difference being nominal. The difference in the estimates and results in Virginia was small. Visiting it more would have crated more advantage for Obama campaign, extending the victory difference further. Thusly, a 0.001% edge of triumph in a state picks up the victor an entire state at the same time, then again, losing by that same modest edge is lost the entire state. Along these lines, the reality that a specific applicant may have almost gotten up to speed to his rival in the fading days of the campaign by going to a state commonly did not help at all on the off chance that he by and by lost the state (Larcinese, Snyder and Testa 2013). Again in Wisconsin, the same thing happened. Both the parties could have taken advantage of these two states and visited them more so that the voting prevalence of these states could have been utilized properly. Visiting Colorado multiple times made the difference. In addition, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and Ohio followed Colorado closely. Visiting these states paid off and ultimately made the difference.Conclusion:On a concluding note, the Median Voter Model or the Downs Model has been extremely helpful in understanding the voting patterns of people. It also helped in directing how the voting patterns and outlook can be utilized to gain more votes and an ultimate win for the party.References:Downs, A., 1957. An economic theory of political action in a democracy. Journal of Political Economy, 65(2), pp.135-150.Larcinese, V., Snyder, J.M. and Testa, C., 2013. Testing models of distributive politics using exit polls to measure voters’ preferences and partisanship. British Journal of Political Science, 43(04), pp.845-875.Portmann, M. and Stadelmann, D., 2013. Testing the Median Voter Model and Moving Beyond Its Limits: Do Characteristics of Politicians Matter? (No. 2013-05). Center for Research in Economics, Management and the Arts (CREMA).Sinclair, B., 2014. Party wars: Polarization and the politics of national policy making (Vol. 10). University of Oklahoma Press.
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