Asses the importance of the ethnic minority vote in the US political system The political system within the US consists of two parties; Democrats and Republicans. Whilst the Democrats conventionally gain the vote of the worse off citizens, the Republicans achieve the vote of the better off citizens; nevertheless, neither party are oblivious of the importance of the ethnic minorities. In 2008 Blacks voted at higher levels than they ever had in any other Presidential Election. Black voter turnout averages between 5% and 10% below that of the White voter turnout. Many Blacks doubt the political system has any value for them.
FPTP ensures a strong and stable government in the UK; however, FPTP can sometimes fail to do so. First Past the Post ensures there is a strong a stable Government by, guaranteeing a party will receive the majority of seats in an election more than 90% of the time. For example; in the history of election outcomes in the UK, there has only been two occasions when a party failed to gain more than 50% of seats. This situation occurred in 2010 when the Tories gained 306 seats, and formed a coalition with the Lib Dems. In 1979 Labour Party under the Leadership of Wilson gained 301 seats and ended up forming a coalition with the Liberals in 1976.
Well, besides what has already been mentioned, it was based largely on higher black turnout, a bigger Hispanic vote, big numbers among younger voters and first-time voters, and more support from independents. Additionally, the 2008 exit poll found far more Democrats turned out than Republicans. In the exit poll four years ago, self-identified Democrats and Republicans each constituted 37 percent of the sample, but this year 39 percent of voters were Democrats compared with 32 percent of Republicans. Fewer Republican voters meant fewer votes for McCain (Election Results 2008). So, it appears that 2008 election was not one of ideological, or “political cultural,” change, but one merely of circumstances – circumstances that left a nation yearning for a change; a change in party, a change in views, and a change in presidential persona.
How did Obama beat Clinton to the democratic nomination? When the little known US Senator for Illinois announced his intentions to run in the democratic presidential primary in 2007, few believed that he could defeat the party backed establishment candidate, Hilary Clinton. Clinton’s campaign was described as “the largest and most powerful presidential campaign in History” and although Obama himself was quietly confident, his early investors were sceptical as Clinton gained an early twenty point lead. So how was he able to turn things around? Obama had three key factors on his side.
Recent research has suggest that the senate has now become the more moderate house. Jeff Flake, a previous congressman but now senator, was one of the most conservative members in the house, and According to DW-Nominate scores, which look at a member of Congress’s roll call votes, he was in the 98th percentile for conservatism among House Republicans in his final year in the chamber. However, Flakes election somewhat changed in view point, he now became a moderate, and he wasn't the only one, Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada was in the 80th percentile for conservatism among House Republicans in the 112th Congress but in the 30th percentile for conservatism among Senate Republicans in the 113th Congress. There were a number of other as well but whats interesting about this is that moderates in senate still seem to have influence, the huge variety of ideologies in a states somewhat force moderate to live on, solely on the fact of re-election. The number of moderate in the senate, outweigh that of the tea party caucus, 3-1.
By 1982 it had fallen to 36.4% and 43.4%, however since then it has risen dramatically to 72.8% and 59.8% in 2012. In the 1980s there we had examples of left wing republicans such as Lowell Weicker and right wing democrats such as Ed Zorinsky, and thus significant ideological overlap between the parties. However this has clearly reduced. What has been described as the ‘rise of hyper-partisanship’ has seen each party become more united in opposition to one another. We have seen the rise of the ‘Hastert rule’ among republicans, which dictates that the speaker shouldn’t allow the vote unless the majority of republicans support it.
Ryan Murphy Political Science 11/3/10 Political Analysis of John Hall John Hall, elected in the general election of 2006 over Sue Kelly with a 2.4% margin of victory appears to be a suitable fit for the 19th district of New York in terms of the population demographic and bringing noticeable change to his district. This may come as a surprise to some as he is a Democrat serving in a traditionally Republican seat. New York’s 19th district is composed of Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, Westchester and Putnam counties. This area has a wide demographic of people with 78.7% urban and the other 21.3% as rural. Furthermore 78.7% are white, 5.8% are black, 10.7% Hispanic, and 3.1% Asian which make up majority of ethnicity in the district.
Turnout was 82.2 percent, with Lincoln winning the free Northern states, as well as California and Oregon. Douglas won Missouri, and split New Jersey with Lincoln. [123] Bell won Virginia, Tennessee, and Kentucky, and Breckinridge won the rest of the South. [124] Although Lincoln won only a plurality of the popular vote, his victory in the electoral college was decisive: Lincoln had 180 and his opponents added together had only 123. There were fusion tickets in which all of Lincoln's opponents combined to support the same slate of Electors in New York, New Jersey, and Rhode Island, but even if the anti-Lincoln vote had been combined in every state, Lincoln still would have won a majority in the Electoral
In 1876, 1888 and 2000, the candidate who won the popular vote lost the presidency because of this system. There is a winner takes all system, in all states except for Maine and Nebraska, where the candidate with the most votes in one states wins all the electoral college votes for that state. This often hugely distorts the results, for example Reagan won 50.7% of the popular vote but won 90.9% of the electoral college votes. It is also grossly unfair to third parties, Ross Perot for example won 18.9% of the popular vote but gained none of the electoral college votes. It can also be considered unfair in the way that it allows for the votes of some people to be worth more than others depending on geographical location.
Rossi led Gregoire by only 260 votes in Washington State’s 2004 Governor’s Race. This was the outcome of the first voting results in Washington state’s Governor’s Race, and as with any race this close; calling for a recount was Rossi’s only option, as it was also mandatory since the spread was less than 2,000 votes, and called for a machine recount, since only a hand recount is called if the spread is less than 150. Three counts of nearly 3 million ballots, four lawsuits, and seven weeks later the state of Washington discovered that what was thought to be a simple recount, turned into months of unfairness and disharmony. After the first machine recount Gregoire was only 42 counts behind, which by law, called for yet another count, but this