Introduction to the Symposium on “America in the 2020 Elections”

• Author: Seth C. McKee
• Published date: 01 June 2022
• Date: 01 June 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10659129221100999
• Subject Matter: Mini-Symposium: America in the 2020 Elections

Mini-Symposium: America in the 2020 Elections

Political Research Quarterly

2022, Vol. 75(2) 458–459

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

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DOI: 10.1177/10659129221100999

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Introduction to the Symposium on

“America in the 2020 Elections”

Seth C. McKee

1

As Forrest Gump’s mama liked to say, “Life is like a box

of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.”

And so it is, when an editor places a call for a symposium

on a certain subject, in this case, “America in the 2020

Elections.”Political Research Quarterly (PRQ) received

many submissions for this mini-symposium and ulti-

mately accepted four articles in this issue that in some

form or fashion relate to the political status of the United

States in the unique 2020 election cycle.

Without question, a global pandemic grabbed the at-

tention of the American voter, but how political behavior

responded to this deadly threat was f‌iltered through the

partisan lens of polarized contemporary politics. But

COVID-19 was not the only issue on the minds of voters.

The shocking killing of George Floyd at the knee of a

Minneapolis police off‌icer on May 25, 2020, instantly

revived the waning inf‌luence of the Black Lives Matter

movement, making it far more popular than it had ever

been, as millions saw the video or otherwise found out

about this tragedy. As per the last 10 years or so, tech-

nological advances and the ubiquitous dissemination of

news via social media also gave rise in 2020 to more

ref‌ined strategies for reaching the American voter in the

Democratic presidential nomination contests. Finally, as

an amplif‌ied trend since the ascendancy of Donald Trump

to the White House in 2016, in 2020, America witnessed

the greatest amount of online incivility via tweets in

congressional elections since the genesis of Twitter in

2006.

The sequencing of the articles is deliberate and pur-

poseful based on the unfolding of major events in the 2020

elections. First, Brodnax and Sapiezynski (2022) show us,

with novel data from the Facebook Ad Library, that the

2020 contests for the Democratic presidential nomination

broke with precedent due to candidates’emphasis on

digital advertising targeting potential supporters and

political donors located in their home states during the

invisible primary season (pre-Iowa caucuses). Digital ads

are much cheaper than television broadcasting, and it is a

much nimbler way to reach supporters with tailored

messages seeking the two most precious commodities in

electoral politics: money and votes. The focus on home

states as a base of political support was utilized by all 26

major Democratic candidates the authors collected data

on. To be sure, strategies pivoted toward the early primary

contests (Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South

Carolina) as these elections neared, but candidates’

concentration on their home state as an anchor for cul-

tivating political support in 2020 has no historical pre-

cedent, and as Brodnax and Sapiezynski suggest, “digital

ads may be the new direct mail”in presidential

campaigns.

VanDusky-Allen, Utych, and Catalano (2021) provide

insight on how Democrats and Republicans in the elec-

torate viewed state-level actions geared toward handling

the novel coronavirus. With survey data and experimental

data looking at mass opinions around the initial outbreak

of COVID-19 (May 2020) and the re-opening or re-

sumption of most normal activities months later (August

2020), the authors consider the impressions of Democrats

and Republicans based on a major political cue, the party

aff‌iliation of the governor. During the early stages of the

pandemic, aff‌iliates of both parties viewed political per-

formance of their governors and the effectiveness of

policies principally through a partisan lens. Hence,

Democrats gave higher marks for the actions taken by a

Democratic governor and Republicans did the same if

they had a fellow Republican governor at the helm.

Because of the partisan division on whether to prioritize

health and safety (Democrats) or maintaining some degree

of economic sustenance (Republicans), Democrats and

Republicans made assumptions that governors of their

party responded to the health crisis with expectations

along this politicized fault line. Finally, when most states

began easing restrictions, VanDusky-Allen, Utych, and

Catalano f‌ind an interesting asymmetry in partisan be-

havior regarding evaluations of state-level responses to

the COVID-19 pandemic, “Democrats relied on both

1

Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK, USA

Corresponding Author:

Seth C. McKee, Department of Political Science, Oklahoma State

University, 220 Social Sciences and Humanities, Stillwater, OK 74078,

USA.

Email: mckee@okstate.edu