AP Unit 4 Chapter 8 Vocabulary
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26 terms
Terms | Definitions |
|---|---|
 presidential races | more competitive than House races; more voter participation |
| $2000 | maxium for individual donors |
| $5000 | limit for PACs, but most just give a few hundred dollars |
| Challengers | must supply their own money |
| malapportionment | discticts have very different populations, so the votes in a less-populated district "weigh more" than those in the more-popuated district |
| gerrymandering | boundaries are drawn to favor one party rather than another, resulting in odd-shaped districts |
| independent expenditures | an organization or PAC can spend as much as it wishes on advertising, so long as it is not coordinated with a candidate's campaign |
| soft money | unlimited amounts of money may be given to a political party, so long as a candidate is not named |
| Bipartisan Campiagn Finance Reform Act | banned soft money contributions to national parties from corporations and unions after the 2002 election; raised the limit on individual donations to $2000 per candidate per election; sharply restricted independent expenditures |
| 527 Organizations | a new source of money under the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act; designed to permit the kind of soft money expenditures once made by political parties; they can spend their money on politics so long as they do not coordinate with candidate or lobby directly for that person |
| factors that decide presidential elections | political party affiliation, the economy, character |
| prospective voting | used by relatively few voters |
| retrospective voting | practiced by most voters, and decides most elections |
| Democratic coalition | African Americans, Jews, Hispanics (not Cuban) |
| Republican coalition | business and professional peopple who are very loyal, farmers |
| blanket primary | a primary election in which each voter may vote for candidates from both parties |
| caucus (electoral) | a meeting of voters held to help choose a candidate for office |
| closed primary | a primary election in which voting is limited to already registered party members |
| coattails | the alleged tendency of candidates to win more votes in an election because of the presence at the top of the ticket of a better-known candidate, such as the president |
| general election | an election held to determine which candidate will hold office |
| incumbent | the person already holding office |
| open primary | a primary election in which voters may choose in which party to vote as they enter the polling place |
| position issue | an issue about which the public is divided and rival parties or candidates adopt different positions |
| runoff primary | a second primary election held when no candidate gets a majority of the votes in the first primary |
| sophomore surge | an increase in the votes a congressional candidate usually gets when they first run for re-election |
| valence issue | an issue about which the public is united and rival candidates or political parties adopt similar positions in hopes that each will be thought to represent those widely shared beliefs |
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