| Term | Definition |
|---|
| political party | a group of office holders, candidates, activists, and voters who identify with a group label and seek to elect to public office individuals who run under that label |
| governmental party | the office holders and candidates who run under a political party's banner |
| organizational party | the workers and activists who staff the party's formal organization |
| party in the electorate | the voters who consider themselves allied or associated with the party |
| machine | a party organization that recruits its members with tangible incentives and is characterized by a high degree of control over member activity |
| direct primary | the selection of candidates through the selection of qualified voters rather than at party nomination conventions |
| civil service laws | these acts removed the staffing of the bureaucracy from political parties and created a professional bureaucracy filled through competition |
| patronage | jobs, grants, or favors that are given as rewards to friends and political allies for their support |
| spoils system | the firing of public-office officials of a defeated political party and their replacement with loyaltists of the newly elected party |
| issue-oriented politics | politics that focuses on specific issues rather than on party, candidate, or other loyalties |
| ticket-split | to vote for candidates of different parties of various offices in the same election |
| political consultant | professional who manages campaigns and political advertisements for political candidates |
| coalition | a group of interests or organizations that join forces for the purpose of electing public officials |
| national party platform | a statement of the general specific philosophy and policy goals of a political party, usually promulgated at the national convention |
| national convention | a party conclave held for the presidential election year for the purpose of nominating a presidential and vice-presidential ticket and adopting a platform |
| coattail effect | the tendency of lesser-known or weaker candidates lower on the ballot to profit in an election by the presence on the party's ticket of a more popular candidate |
| party identification | a citizen's personal affinity for a political party, usually expressed by his or her tendency to vote for the candidates of that party |
| one-partyism | a political system where one party virtually dominates and wins all contests |
| proportional representation | a voting system that apportions legislative seats according to the percentage of vote won by a particular political party |
| dualist theory | the theory that there has always been an underlying binary party nature to U.S. politics |
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