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Unit 5
20–27% of examThis unit covers how citizens influence government: voting, political parties, interest groups, elections and the media. You'll learn who votes and why, how presidents and members of Congress get elected, why the U.S. has two major parties, and how money and media shape campaigns.
Longer videos that cover the whole unit. Good for a first pass or a final review.
The 14th Amendment made everyone born or naturalized in the U.S. a citizen, including formerly enslaved people, and later amendments widened the vote: the 15th banned denying the vote because of race (opening voting to Black men), the 17th let voters elect senators directly, the 19th banned denying it because of sex, the 24th banned poll taxes in federal elections, and the 26th lowered the voting age to 18. Political scientists describe rational-choice voters (voting their own interests), retrospective voters (judging past performance), prospective voters (predicting future performance) and straight-ticket voters (picking one party for every office).
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Whether people vote depends on state rules (registration, voter ID, polling hours, and mail and early voting), on political efficacy (believing your participation makes a difference) and on demographics like age and education. Turnout is higher in presidential elections than in midterms, and party identification, issues and candidate traits shape whom people choose.
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Linkage institutions, namely political parties, interest groups, elections and the media, carry citizens' wishes to policymakers. Parties mobilize and educate voters, write platforms, recruit candidates, run campaigns, and organize the leadership and committees in Congress.
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Parties have less control over nominations than they used to, as campaigns have become more candidate-centered, and they adjust their messages to win over different groups of voters. Critical elections that cause realignments, changes in campaign finance law, and new communication and voter-data technology have all reshaped how parties operate.
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Third-party and independent candidates rarely win because most U.S. elections are winner-take-all, which rewards the two largest parties; proportional systems, by contrast, give parties seats according to their share of the vote. The major parties also tend to adopt popular third-party ideas, which takes away a third party's main appeal.
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Interest groups shape policy by lobbying, educating voters and officials, drafting bills, mobilizing members and filing amicus curiae ("friend of the court") briefs, and they work through iron triangles and issue networks. Groups with more members, money and access, like AARP, usually have more influence, and many groups face the free-rider problem, which they tackle with selective benefits only members get.
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Single-issue groups, ideological and protest movements, professional organizations, the military and bureaucratic agencies all compete to shape policy, including the federal budget. Elections sometimes bring major policy shifts and can lead to realignments, when large groups of voters change their party loyalty.
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Presidential candidates compete in state primaries (open or closed) and caucuses to win delegates, are formally nominated at party conventions, then face off in the general election, where incumbents usually have an edge. The Electoral College decides the winner, and since most states give all their electors to the statewide winner, a candidate can win the presidency while losing the national popular vote, as happened in 2000 and 2016.
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Congressional candidates usually win their party's nomination in a primary and then face the other party's nominee in the general election; every House seat and about a third of Senate seats are up every two years. Incumbents win reelection most of the time thanks to name recognition, fundraising and service to their districts, and turnout drops in midterm years.
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Today's campaigns rely on professional consultants, raise and spend enormous sums, run for a long time, and use social media heavily to reach voters and raise money. These trends help candidates reach more people but also raise concerns about cost, constant fundraising and voter fatigue.
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Campaign finance rules reflect a debate between limiting money's influence on elections and protecting free speech. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 banned soft money (large, unregulated donations) to national parties and added the "stand by your ad" rule, and in Citizens United v. FEC (2010) the Court ruled that the First Amendment protects independent political spending by corporations, unions and other groups, which opened the way for super PACs.
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The media is a linkage institution that shapes what you know about politics and which issues seem important, a power called agenda setting. Coverage built around poll numbers can turn elections into "horse races" about who's ahead rather than about candidates' qualifications and plans.
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With far more media choices than before, including cable, websites and social media, people can pick sources that match their views, which fuels debates about media bias, ownership and partisan news. Opinion-driven shows, feeds that keep showing you what you already agree with, and doubts about which sources to trust all shape how much citizens know and how well they debate.
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