Voting Process
This type of election is held to choose which candidate will represent a specific political party in the general election.
What is a Primary Election?
This is the "magic number" of electoral votes a candidate needs to win the Presidency.
What is 270?
This is a political party’s stance on one specific, individual issue.
What is a Plank?
This group generally believes in a larger government that should be involved in creating social change and equality.
Who are Liberals?
Any political party in the U.S. that is not the Democrats or the Republicans is known as this.
What is a Third Party?
In this specific type of primary, only registered members of a political party are allowed to vote for that party's candidates.
What is a Closed Primary?
A state’s number of electoral votes is calculated by adding its number of House Representatives to this number of Senators.
What is two?
This is the term for a party’s entire collection of goals and beliefs (the collection of all their "planks").
What is a Platform?
This group generally favors smaller government, lower taxes, and traditional values.
Who are Conservatives?
This 2010 Supreme Court case ruled that corporations and unions can spend unlimited money on elections.
What is Citizens United v. FEC?
This is the practice of redrawing voting district lines to give one political party an unfair advantage over the other.
What is Gerrymandering?
This is the total number of electoral votes available in the entire United States,
What is 538?
When a party monitors the actions of the party currently in power to alert the public of any wrongdoing, they are acting as this.
What is a Watchdog?
This person holds a mix of views from both sides of the spectrum and doesn't lean toward any extreme.
Who is a Moderate?
This is a powerful committee that can raise unlimited sums of money from donors to spend on political ads.
What is a Super PAC?
This term describes an election where voters can choose which party’s primary they want to vote in, regardless of their own affiliation.
What is an Open Primary?
This term describes a state where the population is closely divided politically and could vote for either party.
What is a Swing State?
This theory suggests that major parties try to include a wide and diverse range of viewpoints to catch as many voters as possible.
What is the "Big Tent" theory?
This type of person wants to move society backward to "how things used to be."
Who is a Reactionary?
This is the media’s power to influence which issues the public (and candidates) think are most important by choosing what to cover.
What is Agenda-Setting?
This is the specific term for a candidate's promotion of themselves and their ideas to gain voter support before an election.
What is campaigning?
This rule, used by 48 states, gives all of a state’s electoral points to whichever candidate wins the popular vote in that state.
What is the Winner-Take-All system?
When a party ensures that its candidates are qualified and of good character, it is performing this specific role.
What is a Bonding Agent?
This group advocates for immediate social reform and often radical new ideas to improve society.
Who are Progressives?
This type of media reaches a huge, anonymous audience and allows for one-way communication (like a TV news broadcast).
What is Mass Media?