Tag: 2020 Election
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2020 Elections & Voting and Campaigns: Division
Voting in 2020 saw some familiar divides in the electorate and some that are new. Many observed there is a “diploma divide”, as college educated voters were more likely to vote Democratic than non-college educated voters. However, the diploma divide only exists among white voters. While Joe Biden narrowly won college-educated white voters, he lost […]
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2020 Elections & The Media: Disinformation
The 2020 election showed a rise in the power of social media, as well as the problems with social media. Campaigns spent hundreds of millions of dollars advertising on social media. However, there were questions about whether social media companies were simply allowing candidates to spread false information. At the same time, foreign operatives and […]
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2020 Elections & The Constitution: The Popular Vote
The 2020 election saw attempts by the Trump campaign to convince state legislative leaders to overturn the results of the popular vote in that state. This happened because of the electoral college. The Constitution grants state legislatures the power to decide how their electors will be selected. While each state has decided its electors will […]
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2020 Elections & The Electoral College Vote: Congressional Certification
On December 14th, 2020, electors that had been appointed by state legislatures of the 50 states and the district of Columbia met in their respective state capitols to cast their votes for president. In each state, political parties choose their slate of electors. Generally, the parties either nominate slates of potential electors at their state […]
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2020 Elections & Congress: Party Composition
In the House of Representatives, Democrats in 2020 were defending a majority in the 435-member House. Republicans held 197 House seats and needed 218 to win control. The results of the November 3 election show that the Democrats will have at least 222 seats and Republicans will have at least 211. As of this writing, […]
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2020 Elections & Civil Liberties: Campaigning
The 2020 election was the most expensive in history by a wide margin. More money was spent by candidates for federal office in 2020 than in 2016 and 2012 combined. This largely happened because in last few years the Supreme Court has struck down limits on campaign spending and donations on Freedom of Speech grounds. […]
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2020 Elections & Participation: Voter Turnout
While more people have voted than at any other time in American history, percentage-wise, this number does not quite break records. Given that around 239.2 million Americans were eligible to vote in 2020, the projected number of voters brings us to a 66.7% turnout rate. This makes 2020 the year with the highest voter turnout […]
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2020 Elections & Public Opinion: The Polls
Before the election, respected national polls were showing Joe Biden receiving somewhere between 50 and 52 percent of the vote. These same polls showed Donald Trump receiving between 40 and 44 percent of the vote. In the end, the national polls correctly predicted Biden’s vote share, but missed on Trump’s vote share. At the state […]