Making Sense of the 2016 Elections

Brian Schaffner is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a faculty associate at the Institute for Quantitative Social Science at Harvard University. He is also the Founding Director of the UMass Poll and a co-PI for the Cooperative Congressional Election Study. Schaffner’s research focuses on public opinion, campaigns and elections, political parties, and legislative politics. He is the coauthor of the book Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When Purists Prevail, the coeditor of the book Winning with Words: The Origins & Impact of Political Framing, and coauthor of Understanding Political Science Research Methods: The Challenge of Inference. His research has also appeared in over thirty journal articles. John A. Clark is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Western Michigan University. Clark’s research focuses on political parties, campaigns and elections, legislative politics, and the politics of the American South. He is the coeditor of Southern Political Party Activists and Party Organization and Activism in the American South, which won the 1999 V. O. Key Award as the best book on Southern politics. He has authored or coauthored more than thirty book chapters and articles in scholarly journals. Since 2002, he and Schaffner have coauthored a series of short monographs analyzing the presidential and midterm elections; 2016 marks the eighth in the series.

• IntroductionThe Electoral Landscape in 2016Choosing the Presidential NomineesThe Invisible PrimaryThe Democratic Party Decides on ClintonThe Republican Party Decides Not to DecideThe General Election CampaignThe Case for Thinking the Campaign MatteredThe Case for Thinking the Campaign Was of Minimal ImportanceCampaigns Are Mostly about MobilizationThe OutcomeAnother Electoral College/Popular Vote SplitWhere the Election Was WonHow Key Groups VotedWhy People Voted for TrumpThe Battle for Control of CongressHow Republicans Kept the Senate RedWhy Republicans Retained Their House MajorityDiversity in CongressThe 2016 Elections in the StatesGovernors and State LegislaturesBallot ProposalsPutting the 2016 Election into ContextNotesAbout the Authors