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Polls and Elections: Leviathan's Reach? The Impact of Political Consultants on the Outcomes of the 2012 Republican Presidential Primaries and Caucuses
Author(s) -
Cain Sean A.
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
presidential studies quarterly
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.337
H-Index - 5
eISSN - 1741-5705
pISSN - 0360-4918
DOI - 10.1111/psq.12174
Subject(s) - nominate , presidential system , political science , politics , scholarship , power (physics) , competition (biology) , public administration , front (military) , divided government , political economy , law , sociology , engineering , ecology , statistics , physics , mathematics , quantum mechanics , biology , mechanical engineering
Recent scholarship into American political parties argues that the power to nominate presidential candidates has not entirely devolved from the party to voters but retains party influence via a network of allied actors including political consultants. Once party elites coalesce around a preferred candidate, primary voters tend to comply with their will. However, scholarship has not yet shown whether consultants help produce this effect. Consultants, even those with close contractual ties to the party organization, do not behave as this view expects, and they worked for several GOP candidates in 2012, enhancing intraparty competition rather than rallying around the front‐runner.