The largest elective class in Vanderbilt’s history, PSCI-1150: U.S. Elections captivated over 1,000 students this fall. Under the leadership of some of Vanderbilt’s finest professors—Josh Clinton, John Geer, Nicole Hemmer, and Jon Meacham—the course provided an in-depth survey of presidential campaigns, elections, and the presidency. A number of esteemed guests from Washington also visited the class, including Senator Mitch McConnell, Representative Nancy Pelosi, and former Director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency Chris Krebs.
This article highlights three striking points from the course.
The Presidential Campaign and Sub-Campaigns – John Geer
Early in the semester, Professor Geer argued that presidential campaigns aren’t singly-definable initiatives but rather compounds of multiple sub-campaigns. Geer categorized these various sub-campaigns as lobbies for the support of (1) donors, (2) party activists, (3) interest groups, (4) the press, and (5) the public.
Though these sub-campaigns all work towards a common goal—winning the party primary and presidential election—they present distinct and conflicting pressures. For example, while the press constantly seeks new angles on campaigns, candidates may prefer to repeat similar themes in their messaging. This proved true in 2024 where both Trump and Harris anchored their speech to issues where their support was strongest: Trump to the economy and immigration and Harris to abortion. Another tension exists between the appeals that campaigns make to donors, interest groups, and the general public. Donors and interest groups tend to prefer detailed proposals and clearly defined policy commitments from candidates. Conversely, a broad set of unspecific goals may do better to not alienate any demographic of voters.
In this variety of forces pulling on them, campaigns are complex and compound entities.
The ‘92 vs. ‘24 Campaign – George Stephanopoulos
As communications director for the 1992 Clinton Campaign and now a political commentator for ABC News, George Stepanopoulos uniquely understands how the presidential contest has evolved. In his visit to PSCI-1150, Stephanopoulos noted that the number of battleground states in presidential elections has decreased and that today’s media landscape has greatly complicated the role of campaign communication. Still, Stephanopoulus’s most notable point was his comparison of the 1992 and 2024 American electorates.
In 1992, Stephanopoulos posits there were Democrats who were willing to vote for Republican presidential candidates and vice versa. With a high concentration of moderates and undecided voters, campaigns focused on convincing these people to earn their support.
Today, however, the boundaries of partisanship are much more rigid. To this end, a survey from the American National Election Studies asked Democrats and Republicans to rate their feelings toward the opposing party on a scale from 0 to 100 (100: extremely favorable, 50: neutral, 0: highly unfavorable). From 1978 through the early 1990s, this sentiment averaged around 50 percent—relatively neutral. Today, it’s just 19 percent. These heightened feelings of antagonism likely suggest that voters would be less willing to convert their partisanship during an electoral race. Such a conclusion is substantiated by the fact that approximately 90 percent of U.S. voters, surveyed in September 2024, reported that they planned to vote for the same party which they had in the 2020 presidential election.
With a stronger politically affiliated electorate, campaigns today are more oriented towards getting their voters to show up to the polls, Stephanopoulos believes. And ultimately, turnout proved to be invaluable to Trump’s reelection. According to the Wall Street Journal, across the 157 counties that President Biden carried in 2020 by more than ten percentage points, turnout declined 5.9 percent. In fact, the only county type that saw an increase in turnout was those that Trump won by a larger than ten-point margin in 2020.
Thus, increasingly, elections are being determined by which candidates can get their voters out to the polls rather than who they can convince.
Political Calcification – Lynn Vavreck
Another fascinating visit to PSCI-1150 was that of Lynn Vavreck, the Marvin Hoffenberg Professor of American Politics and Public Policy at UCLA. Vavreck presented her understanding of the American political landscape.
While Vavreck says the American system is often described as polarized, she labels it as calcified. “Calcification,” Vavreck clarifies, “is what makes politics feel ‘sticky.'” She explains the term as follows: “Calcification makes the stakes of winning elections very high because the other side is farther away than ever on divisive issues where compromise is hard, and victory is always within reach.” She believes this characteristic is composed of four main components.
To start, there is an increasing level of homogeneity within political parties; Democrats are more alike today than ever, as are Republicans. Simultaneously, there is a heightened level of heterogeneity between political parties; Democrats and Republicans are ideologically farther apart than prior.
Thirdly, today’s political landscape, Vavreck contends, features a high degree of identity-inflected issues, which have changed the way that politics are conducted. Previously, parties quarreled over “New Deal topics,” disputing the size and scope of government. Now, salient political issues concern identity, carrying more personal and emotional significance. Issues such as illegal immigration force voters to reckon with the question, “Who gets to be an American?” and debates about same-sex marriage and abortion induce judgements on body and relationship rights.
Traditional “New Deal” issues had clear bargaining ranges: disagreement on taxation, for example, could be remedied in a compromise on tax rates or brackets. But with immigration, gay rights, and abortion, compromise is significantly more challenging, if possible at all. Politics becomes a zero-sum game: no alternative solutions exist in the median between extremes, and policy outcomes are “all or nothing.”
Finally, political parties today are at a rough balance, and presidential elections are always close. Though some journalists have labeled Trump’s victory a landslide, his electoral college win hinged on a margin of about 177,000 votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. 2020 was even closer; Biden’s win depended on 43,000 votes in Michigan, Georgia, and Arizona. These margins of victory, compared to the roughly 155 million votes cast in 2020 and 2024, are miniscule. Such constant proximity to victory means that when parties lose, they have less incentive to return to the drawing board and alter their platform. Instead, they can try to change the “rules of the game” through post-election lawsuits that contest how votes were cast.
What impact does calcification have? Vavreck says that it makes politics stiff and rigid. The platforms that candidates present are far apart but have relatively equal prospects of victory and realization. This means elections are less about who you want to be president than they are about whose world you want to live in.
Final Word
As mentioned, these are only a few takeaways from a unique and insightful course. Personally, this class invoked great feelings of gratitude and inspiration in me as I realized how special of an opportunity it was to hear from distinguished professors and public officials about the American democratic system. It also pushed me to think critically about how campaigns are conducted and to contrast American elections in the past, present, and future. Ultimately, this class was truly an unbelievable experience, and future Commodores, whether studying political science or not, should be quick to enroll in 2028.
