Beyond Red State and Blue State: Electoral Gaps in the 21st Century American Electorate

by Olson; Matthew H.

• ISBN13: 9780136155577
• ISBN10: 013615557X
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-02-18
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Beyond Red State and Blue State: Electoral Gaps in the 21st Century American Electorate explores the many demographic gaps that exist within the American electorate. This book is designed to explore the most important voting gaps in American politics today. It shows that twenty-first-century Americans are divided on a wide range of political fronts that go far beyond the somewhat simplistic "red state, blue state" rubric that has become so popular in American political discourse. Reality is far more complex. The authors capture and explain this complexity through a collection of chapters by leading scholars of a range of voting gaps, including racial/ethnic gaps, the marriage gap, the worship attendance gap, the income/class gap, the rural/urban gap, the gender gap, and the generation gap. Also included is a chapter by a leading political pollster and strategist, Anna Greenberg, on how campaigns use information about voting gaps.

Author Biography

Laura R. Olson is professor of political science at Clemson University.  Her research focuses on contemporary religion, civic engagement, and American politics, with special emphasis on the political attitudes and behaviors of clergy.  She is the author, coauthor, or coeditor of seven books, including Religion and Politics in America: Faith, Culture, and Strategic Choices (Westview, 2004) and many scholarly articles and book chapters.

 

John C. Green is Distinguished Professor of political science at the University of Akron and the director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics. He has done extensive research on American political parties, campaign finance, and religion and politics. An author and editor of numerous books, his most recent publications include The Faith Factor (Praeger, 2007) and The State of the Parties (Rowman & Littlefield, 2006).

Table of Contents

Preface	p. viii
About the Contributors	p. ix
"Gapology" and the 2004 Presidential Vote	p. 1
"Gapology" and the 2004 Presidential Vote	p. 2
Piecing the Gaps Together	p. 6
The Plan of the Book	p. 8
Notes	p. 9
Racial and Ethnic Gaps	p. 10
Group Identification and Group-Based Heuristics	p. 12
A History of Groups in Politics	p. 13
The Significance of Groups in Politics: The Case of African Americans	p. 16
Group-Based Heuristics and African-American Politics	p. 18
Making Sense of Heuristics	p. 19
Expectations on the Future of Racial/Ethnic Electoral Gaps	p. 20
Notes	p. 21
The Marriage Gap	p. 24
The Different Political Worlds of Married and Unmarried America	p. 25
The Rise of Unmarried America and the Changing American Family	p. 28
A Tale of Two Cohorts	p. 31
Causes of the Marriage Gap	p. 31
Political Mobilization	p. 34
The Future of the Marriage Gap and Related Research	p. 37
Notes	p. 38
The Worship Attendance Gap	p. 40
The Sociological Roots of the Worship Attendance Gap	p. 41
The Political Roots of the Worship Attendance Gap	p. 43
The Emergence of the Worship Attendance Gap	p. 44
The Worship Attendance Gap in 2004	p. 46
Will the Worship Attendance Gap Persist in the Future?	p. 49
Notes	p. 50
The Class Gap	p. 53
The Development of Class Analyses	p. 55
The Evidence on Class Divisions	p. 56
Class Divisions in American Politics	p. 59
Constraints on Class Divisions	p. 62
Culture Wars and Class Divisions	p. 63
Income and Abortion Views	p. 65
Conclusion	p. 68
Notes	p. 69
The Rural-Urban Gap	p. 74
Urban Voters and Democratic Loyalty	p. 78
Rural Voters and Republican Loyalty	p. 79
Sources of Urban-Rural Division in Place-Based Stereotypes	p. 80
Economic Change and the Experience of Economic Change	p. 82
Entrepreneurial Self-Images and Private Property	p. 83
Weeding Out the Failures: Labor Market Migration	p. 87
Conclusion	p. 89
Notes	p. 90
The Gender Gap	p. 92
The History of the Modern Gender Gap: 1952 to 2004	p. 93
What Causes the Gender Gap?	p. 94
Gender Differences in Political Attitudes	p. 95
What Women and Men Really Care About	p. 97
The Gender Gap in 2004	p. 97
Was It the Security Moms?	p. 100
Conclusion	p. 106
Notes	p. 107
The Generation Gap	p. 109
Age Groups, Socialization, and the Study of Generations	p. 109
The Generation Gap in the Presidential Vote	p. 114
The Generation Gap in 2004	p. 116
Explaining the Generation Gap in 2004	p. 118
Conclusion	p. 125
Notes	p. 126
Appendix	p. 127
Targeting and Electoral Gaps	p. 129
Targeting Base Supporters and Persuadable Voters	p. 130
Defining Voters	p. 135
Using Targeting Information	p. 139
Micro-Targeting	p. 140
Conclusion	p. 141
Notes	p. 142
Index	p. 143
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