To what extent is race the decisive factor in determining the outcome of elections?

For this factor	Against this factor/not influential
Today RACE wins elections. Latinos are the fastest growing ethnic minority population in the United States at the moment at an estimated 54 million and are continuing to grow rapidly; as a result both political parties are seeking to win over the Latino community, as their vote is instrumental in winning elections. The significance of the Latino vote was highlighted in 2012 in which Mitt Romney tried to win over Latino voters by a variety of means such as using his Spanish-speaking son. However, Romney’s stance on immigration was arguably to strict and he lost the necessary votes, as a consequence of this 71% of Latinos voted for Obama. And since then, the Republicans have begun to take steps towards winning over minority voters, for instance, presidential hopeful Marco Rubio has adopted a softer tone on immigration in recent years as seen from his Gang of 8 Bill. Similarly, the same factor also applies to the African-American demographic: 96% voted for Obama in 2012 and African-Americans are the second largest ethnic group standing at around 45 million.	However, arguably race isn’t always a big deciding factor given the fact that the turnouts among ethnic groups is very low and has in fact been dropping recently as illustrated by the fact that in the 2014 midterms only 8% of Latinos actually voted (10% in 2012) and only 12% of African-Americans voted (13% in 2012) and in terms of the presidential election only 48% of Latinos voted while 66% of African-Americans did (SIGNIFICANT?). This issue could arise due to a number of things, for instance, Latinos may not be turning up to vote because they feel they have been alienated due to the failure on immigration reform in recent years while the black vote may be at risk due to all the recent incidents of police brutality against African-Americans such as the killings of Michael Brown (Ferguson), Freddie Gray (Baltimore) and Eric Garner (New York) in which the Obama administration seem to have not done much and the expectation of Obama’s election leading to racial boundaries being eroded never materialized but still exist. As a result, ethnic groups don’t vote much and race is arguably not a decisive factor in determining the outcome of an election. CONCLUSION: blacks outvoted whites in 2012
With recent Supreme Court rulings such as Citizens United and SpeechNow.org v FEC, MONEY has become a major election winner and is a crucial factor in determining who wins an election. In the 2012 money race Obama successfully raised $1072m (spent $985m) while Romney raised $992.5m (spent $992m). Since the landmark rulings above, elections have become increasingly expensive; for instance, the 2014 midterms were the most expensive in US history costing $3.7 billion. Super PAC Restore Our Future (Romney) collected $153m while Priorities USA (Obama) collected $78m	Money arguably isn’t the most important issue, although it’s used a lot on TV advertising, distributing badges, leaflets and whatnot it does not encourage people to actually vote. The 2014 midterms were the most expensive midterms in US history, however, the turnout remained exceptionally low at just 36% and the 2012 presidential election had a turnout of just 54%, so money has little influence and doesn’t help in winning over voters. Also, arguably money isn’t factor given the high number of Super PACs donating to opposing candidates their influence cancels each other out.
DISSILLUSIONMENT WITH CONGRESS is a major factor given the fact that in recent years people have become increasingly unsatisfied with Washington Politics, Congress’s approval ratings have averaged out at less than 20% every year since 2010, this could be a reason why John McCain lost in 2008. While Barrack Obama was considered a Washington ‘outsider’ for his lack of experience in Congress (just 3 years), McCain was in the Senate since 1987 and is considered a Washington insider, hence why Obama won in 2008. This could also explain why while looking at the potential 2016 presidential candidates, very few of them are actually Washington ‘insiders’, for instance, Mike Huckabee (governor), Ted Cruz (Senate since 2013), Marco Rubio +Rand Paul (Senate since 2011), Martin O’Malley (governor). People are fed up with Washington politics for a number of reasons, e.g. gridlock, polarisation, etc, and are thus more likely to vote for ‘outsiders’	However, if we look at midterm elections even when Congress has got incredibly low approval ratings the incumbency ratings remain incredibly high, this comes as a consequence of gerrymandering which has created huge safe seats, for instance, in 2014 in the House of Representative the incumbency rate was 95% and 82% in the Senate showing that even though people may be dissatisfied with Washington politics, this may not be enough to determine the outcome of elections.
POLICIES determine who wins elections and this has been helped by the increasingly nationalised nature of midterm elections for example. In 2010 (midterms) and 2012 (presidential elections but could say midterm also) the main dominating policy issues were Obamacare. Obama would not have won the election had the Supreme Court not upheld Obamacare in the Sebellius case, thus highlighting how important policy issues are in deciding the outcome of elections. Moreover, the 2004 (presidential) and 2006 (midterm) elections were dominated by the war on terror and Iraq war which in 2004 was a major election winner for George W. Bush because the war was seen as being really popular, particularly in the aftermath of the Iraq war. However in 2006 this same foreign policy wasn’t an election winner, the Democrat Six for 06 agenda which acted as a referendum on Bush’s Iraq War and led to Democrats making gains in the House (+31) and in the Senate (+6).	However, policies may not be the decisive factor in determining the outcome as policies don’t always create clarity between who’s benefited and who’s lost on that policy. For instance, in the context of the 2012 elections (presidential & congressional) healthcare was a major issue, however Obama was elected as President and said he had the mandate to rule on healthcare, but at the same time the Republicans who took over Congress also claimed to have the mandate to rule against Obamacare which led to confusion over the policy and thus, shows that there are other decisive factors in determining the outcome of an election.
The CANDIDATES IMAGE AND RUNNING MATE play a big part in determining the outcome of a presidential election. It is important for there to be a ‘balanced ticket’ in selecting the running mate, Joe Biden was a good balance for a number of reasons: he had served in the Senate for 36 years compared to Obama’s 3 years experience, Biden is white while Obama is black, Biden has a lot of experienced in foreign relations since he served as Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, age was big also while Biden was 67 Obama was 48. While the McCain-Palin ticket was also balanced in 2008, Palin came off as an inadequate running mate who was greatly criticised by the media, with a great focus on her lack of foreign policy experience and work on major policy issues and her apparent misconduct while in office as governor of Alaska and ultimately, polls found that voters were divided on whether they thought Palin had the personality or leadership qualities a vice President should have. The Presidential candidates image is also important, the youthful Barrack Obama greatly contrasted with John McCain’s character and seemed to connect better with voters. Similarly in 2012, Mitt Romney’s ‘dog incident’ played a big part in shaping his character and rivals like Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich aired attacks on Romney about this incident (+there was an incident with his wife’s horse).	Biden’s record wasn’t so good either, he also ran as a presidential candidate prior to becoming Obama’s running mate and ended up making derogatory remarks about Obama. Also, given the disillusionment with Washington Politics we would have at least expected Obama to make losses due to the Biden ticket given the fact he is a Washington insider with 36 years of experience and people are dissatisfied with Congress so perhaps the running mate is not an important factor.
The record of the INCUMBENT is a decisive factor in determining the outcome of elections. Incumbent parties and presidents will usually always suffer if the economy is under performing, about 2/3 of American’s believe their country is ‘on the right track’ with regards to the economy. The increasingly nationalised election campaigns like the Pledge to America and Six for 06 agenda have highlighted the fact that during election time it is the incumbent president or congress that is being judged, under the Six for 06 agenda the Democrats judged the incumbent George W. Bush on his foreign policy and whole ‘war on terror’ also Iraq which proved deeply unpopular, leading to Republicans losing in Congress. The Pledge to America in 2010 was on the issue of Obamacare in which the Democrats made losses, Obamacare led to many senior citizens over the age of 65 drifting away from supporting the Democrats due to changes Obamacare made to Medicare such as changes to Medicare Prescription Drug Part D coverage and cuts of $500 billion.	However, the long-awaiting economic recovery under the Obama administration has arrived, however, the improvement on the economy has brought no credit to Obama nor the Democrats.