Background
Analyzing data drawn from the 2016 ANES survey of the American electorate is best done with some knowledge of basic background information on the 2016 election and with some general understanding of voting behavior in national elections. Brief discussions of both topics are provided on this website through the links below. Students who desire more knowledge of these topics than they find in these brief overviews should consult the suggested readings at the end of each section.
The 2016 Election
Every presidential election is different. Each one has its own unique aspects. Still, the 2016 presidential election surely must be one of the oddest and most surprising elections in modern history. Few political analysts thought that Donald Trump could win the Republican presidential nomination. After he did so, few thought that he would be able to win the general election, but he again confounded the pundits. Trump’s campaign, both for the nomination and the general election, featured behavior and language that would have been deadly to past candidates, yet it failed to sink Trump’s effort. Adding to the unusual nature of the 2016 election was the fact that Hillary Clinton won a clear plurality of the popular vote but nevertheless lost the Electoral College vote, which has happened just one time in the past hundred years, when George W. Bush barely won the Electoral College vote in 2000 despite narrowly losing the popular vote.
A wide field of Republicans sought their party’s presidential nomination. Seventeen hopefuls announced their candidacy, although some were hardly noticed and withdrew fairly quickly. The large number of candidates was in part due to the belief that Republicans had a good chance at winning the White House. Republican optimism over their presidential election prospects was based on the fact that it has been very difficult for a party to capture the White House for three terms in a row and the fact that Barack Obama’s approval rating was below 50 percent in early 2015, when many of the candidates were contemplating whether to run (Gallup 2017).
The large number of Republican candidates also was due to the lack of a dominant candidate whose likelihood of winning the nomination was great enough to discourage many other potential candidates from running. The candidates initially considered to have the best chance included several who were or had been a governor or a U.S. senator, the two offices that have been the most common stepping stones to a presidential nomination. Included among those initially considered to be strong candidates were former Florida governor Jeb Bush, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker, Ohio governor Bob Kasich, Texas senator Ted Cruz, and Florida senator Marco Rubio. In contrast, Trump had never held any elected political office; his candidacy rested on his celebrity status— burnished especially by his popular television shows The Apprentice and The Celebrity Apprentice and on his reputation as a successful businessman.
Trump emerged as the front-runner in mid-2015, well before the first caucuses and primaries, but most analysts attributed this to his name recognition and expected him to fade as the nomination contest unfolded. For one thing, Trump lacked support among party leaders, a factor that had been important for securing the nomination in the past (Cohen et al. 2008). However, the Republican presidential nominating contests did not turn out as many expected. Some of the candidates initially considered to be strong, such as Bush or Walker, had limited success. The candidate who provided the strongest challenge to Trump was Cruz, but he fell well short of being able to defeat Trump, who secured the nomination by winning 41 of the Republican nomination contests, 45 percent of the Republican primary vote, and 1447 of the pledged convention delegates. Cruz won 11 contests, 25 percent of the vote, and 551 of the delegates (Andrews, Bennett, and Parlapiano 2016; Leip 2017).
The Democratic nomination followed a more traditional script. Clinton was the front runner from the beginning. She nearly won the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, and she learned valuable lessons from that campaign. She added to her political experience by serving as Secretary of State for the first six years of the Obama administration, during which time she generally had a favorable approval for her performance in that role, although there were some actions that she took that subsequently damaged her presidential candidacy in 2016. Clinton raised a considerable sum of money in 2015, she secured the endorsement of many Democratic elected officials, and she led in the nomination contest polls at the start of 2016. These all were factors that have predicted success in the past (Cohen et al. 2008). While several other Democrats also sought the nomination, all of them were considered to have little chance of succeeding. However, Clinton’s road to the nomination was bumpier than she expected. The Democratic nomination contests were surprisingly competitive, as Vermont senator Bernie Sanders provided an unexpectedly strong challenge to Clinton and continued to challenge Clinton late into the primary season, even after it was extremely unlikely that he would win the nomination. Clinton prevailed by winning 34 nomination contests and 55 percent of the Democratic primary vote, which translated into her winning 2220 of the pledged convention delegates; Sanders won 23 contests, 43 percent of the vote, and 1831 delegates (Andrews, Bennett, and Parlapiano 2016; Leip 2017).
The general election campaign was a highly unusual one. Trump continued the behavior that won him the nomination. He launched withering attacks on Clinton, used incendiary language throughout the campaign, and made many inaccurate or completely false statements. His general theme was that Washington was corrupt and the country needed an outsider like him to clean up the mess. Trump argued that the country’s leaders had engaged in trade policies that had cost the nation millions of jobs and that they had pursued immigration policies that had damaged the nation. His campaign slogan was Make American Great Again. Clinton focused her campaign on Trump, calling him unqualified to be president, singling out some of his personal traits as dangerous, and criticizing his past personal and business behavior. The tone of the campaign was unusually harsh and negative, and both candidates were viewed very unfavorably by the voters (Pew Research Center 2016).
The 2016 presidential election ended with an Electoral College victory for Trump, even though he decisively lost the popular vote. Trump won only 45.9 percent of the total vote, over two points less than Clinton’s 48.0 percent, but he nevertheless captured 304 of the 538 Electoral College votes. Trump was able to secure an Electoral College victory by winning close elections in several key northern industrial states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
National and state-by-state results
The congressional elections maintained the status quo: Republicans continued their control of the House and the Senate. The Democratic Party thought that it had a good chance to retake control of the Senate and to greatly reduce Republican strength in the House. Election results proved otherwise, leaving Republicans with a solid 241 seat majority in the House and a modest 52 seat majority in the Senate. Democrats gained just two seats in the Senate, even though over two-thirds of the seats up for election were held by Republicans, a number of whom were considered vulnerable incumbents. In the House, Democrats gained only six seats, considerably less than they had expected to win.
Turnout in 2016 increased slightly from 2012 but remained lower than in 2008. About 59 percent of the eligible electorate voted in the 2016 presidential election, compared to about 58 percent in 2012 and 62 percent in 2008. Further information about turnout in 2016, including turnout estimates for each state and comparisons to previous years, is available online.
Further information on the 2016 election can be found in the following books:
- James W. Ceaser, Andrew E. Busch, and John J. Pitney, Jr. Defying the Odds: The 2016 Elections and American Politics. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017.
- Willian J. Crotty, ed. Winning the Presidency 2016. New York: Routledge, 2017.
- Michael Nelson, ed. The Elections of 2016. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press, 2017.
- Larry J. Sabato, Kyle Kondik, and Geoffrey Skelley, ed. Trumped: The 2016 Election That Broke All the Rules. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2017.
Voting Behavior
The most interesting questions about an election are not concerned with who won but with why people voted the way that they did or what the implications of the results are. These questions are not always easily answered, and interpretations of an election often differ. Looking only at the campaign events and the behavior of the candidates will not tell us why people voted the way that they did. Even the public opinion poll data reported in the media may not provide a complete explanation. In order to truly understand the behavior of the electorate in a given election, we must blend knowledge of the features of the election with a more general theoretical understanding of electoral behavior. We therefore need to discuss basic concepts and ideas used in the study of voting behavior as a basis for analyzing the 2016 results.
Two major concerns characterize the study of electoral behavior. One concern is with explaining the election result by identifying the sources of individual voting behavior. With this approach, we attempt to understand the election outcome by understanding how and why the voters made up their minds. Another major concern in voting research emphasizes changes in voting patterns over time, usually with an attempt to determine what the election results tell us about the direction in which American politics is moving. In this case we focus on the dynamics of electoral behavior, especially in terms of present and future developments. These two concerns are complementary, not contradictory, but they do emphasize different sets of research questions. For our purposes, these two concerns provide a useful basis for discussing key aspects of voting behavior.
On what basis do voters decide how they will cast their ballot? Several basic factors can be identified as reasons for choosing a candidate in an presidential election. A voter may choose a candidate on the basis of one or more of the following considerations:
- orientations on issues of public policy
- assessments of the performance of government
- evaluations of the character traits of the candidates
When voters are asked what they like or dislike about a specific candidate—i.e., what might make them vote for or against that candidate—most of their responses fall into one of those three categories.
These orientations and evaluations in turn are influenced by two more general attitudinal factors:
- party identification
- general ideological dispositions
Party identification and ideology are more general, long-run factors that influence voting behavior primarily by affecting the attitudes that are more immediate to the vote decision in a particular year.
The various factors that influence the vote decision vary in their stability over time. Evaluations of candidate qualities and government performance are distinctly short-term forces, capable of substantial shifts from one election to the next. Party identification and ideology are much more stable in the short term. Not many voters change their party identification or ideology from one election to the next, and the changes that do occur often are small ones. Issue orientations fall in between. While the specific issues crucial in presidential elections can change dramatically, as can how the voters evaluate the presidential candidates on the issues, many basic policy questions (e.g., defense spending, social welfare programs, abortion) stretch across several elections, with partisan differences remaining relatively constant.
The various attitudes and orientations that influence voting behavior in presidential elections are interrelated. Understanding the interrelationships among attitudes and orientations is important for a full understanding of voting behavior.
Election results change, often dramatically. A clear victory for one party may be followed by a defeat for that party in the following election. Electoral changes can be divided into two types: short-term and long-term. Short-term changes are the result of fluctuations in factors that are specific to an election, such as the characteristics of the candidates or the condition of the economy. These short-term factors may be moderately favorable to the Democrats in one election, strongly favorable to the Republicans in another, and evenly divided in a third.
Long-term shifts result from alterations in basic partisan loyalties and represent changes that last beyond a particular election. The most significant long-term change occurs when there is a critical realignment of the party system, which refers to a rapid, fundamental, and durable alteration in the pattern of party loyalties held by the electorate (Burnham 1970, 1-10; Sundquist 1983, 1-14). Critical realignments occur infrequently; the last major upheaval of the party system occurred in the 1930s, and before that in the 1890s and 1850s. Changes in the party system since the end of World War II have not been as rapid and dramatic as what occurred during these earlier critical realignments, but the American political party system has been significantly altered over the past several decades.
The New Deal realignment of the 1930s reshaped the American political party system. Some of the current differences between the parties can be traced back to this realignment. However, there have been important developments since the 1930s that have altered the nature of the party system. The more recent developments have not been as sweeping in their scope nor as abrupt in their effect as what occurred in the 1930s, but the cumulative impact of these developments has been substantial.
A number of attitudinal and social factors are related to individual voting behavior. Among attitudinal factors, assessments of the character traits of the candidates, evaluations of government performance, orientations on specific policy issues, party identification, and ideology are the primary determinants of candidate choice. For demographic or social factors, race, religion, socio-economic status, gender, marital status, and age appear to be the characteristics that have most closely related to voting over the past two decades. Examining how these factors are related to the vote in particular elections both allows us to explain individual election outcomes and to understand electoral dynamics.
A good introductory discussions of elections and voting is:
- William H. Flanigan, Nancy H. Zingale, Elizabeth A. Theiss-Morse, and Michael W. Wagner. 2015. Political Behavior of the American Electorate, 13th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.
A somewhat more advanced overview of the factors that affect voting behavior is:
- Abramson, Paul R., John H. Aldrich, Brad T. Gomez, and David W. Rhode. 2016. Change and Continuity in the 2012 and 2014 Elections. Thousand Oaks, CA: CQ Press.