November 10-14, 2010
at the University of Central Oklahoma

Elections are the lynchpin in a democratic-republic. They are the mechanism by which citizens select their leaders and the point at which leaders are held accountable for their decisions. Elections provide us with a meaningful opportunity to ratify or repudiate those decisions. Because of this, they get a lot of attention and interest. Politicians and pundits alike want to know how elections are likely to turn out, and this interest affects the political strategies of both the parties and the candidates, the political coverage of the media, the enthusiasm of activists, the extent of campaign contributions, and the interest of voters. The growth in the polling industry over the years is a response to this interest in the political future.

In this course, we will examine the development of forecasting U.S. national elections and evaluate the success of models used in recent elections, including the 2008 presidential election and the 2010 midterm congressional elections. We will also explore how the models, and their forecasts, should be evaluated, how the forecasting models compare to each other and to other approaches to election forecasting, which models hold the most promise, how the models might be improved, what the models reveal about American elections and American voters, and a number of issues that the models confront as they attempt to look into our political future. Click here for syllabus

The Class Reading List (These books and articles supplied by OSLEP) To be Announced

James E. Campbell is the Chair of the Department of Political Science at the University at Buffalo State University of New York. He is also the President of Pi Sigma Alpha, The National Political Science Honor Society. He is a former APSA Congressional Fellow and a program director at the National Science Foundation. He has served on the editorial boards of six political science journals and on the executive councils of seven political science organizations. Professor Campbell has published four books and more than sixty book chapters and articles in major political science journals. His most recent book is the second edition of The American Campaign: U.S. Presidential Campaigns and the National Vote, published in 2008 by Texas A&M University Press. He is also the author of Cheap Seats: The Democratic Party's Advantage in U.S. House Elections and The Presidential Pulse of Congressional Elections. Prior to joining the UB faculty in 1998, he served on the faculties of the University of Georgia (1980-88) and Louisiana State University (1988-98).