198 CHAPTER 7|ELECTIONS
After the delegates nominate a presidential candidate, they select
a vice- presidential nominee. The presidential nominee chooses
this running mate, and the delegates almost always ratify this
choice without much debate. Convention delegates also vote on the
party platform, which describes what kinds of policies its candi-
dates will supposedly seek to enact if they are elected.
The fi nal purpose of a convention is to attract public attention to
the party and its nominees. Public fi gures give speeches during the
evening sessions when all major television networks have live cov-
erage. At some recent conventions both parties have drawn press
attention by recruiting speakers who support their political goals
despite being associated with the opposing party.
Once presidential candidates are nominated, the general elec-
tion campaign offi cially begins—though it often unoffi cially starts
much earlier, as soon as the presumptive nominees are known. We
say more about presidential campaigns in a later section.COUNTING PRESIDENTIAL VOTES
Let’s assume for a moment that the campaigning is over and that Election Day has
arrived. Even though in the voting booth you choose between the candidates by
name, you actually don’t vote directly for a presidential candidate. Rather, when
you select your preferred candidate’s name, you are choosing that person’s slate
of pledged supporters from your state to serve as electors, who will then vote
to elect the president. The number of electors for each state equals the state’s
number of House members (which varies by state population) plus the number
of senators (two per state). Altogether, the electors chosen by the citizens of
each state constitute the electoral college, the body that formally selects the
president.
In most states the electoral votes are allocated on a winner-take-all basis: the
candidate who receives the most votes from a given state’s citizens gets all of that
state’s electoral votes. Two states, Maine and Nebraska, allocate most of their
electoral votes at the congressional district level: in those states the candidate
who wins the most votes in each congressional district wins that district’s single
electoral vote. Then the remaining two electoral votes go to the candidate who gets
the most votes statewide.^11
The winner-take-all method of allocating most states’ electoral votes makes
candidates focus their attention on two kinds of states: high-population states with
lots of electoral votes to be gained, and, more important, swing states where the
contest is relatively close. It’s better for a candidate to spend a day campaigning
in California, with its 55 electoral votes, than in Montana, where only 3 electoral
votes are at stake. However, if one candidate is sure to win a particular state, both
candidates will direct their eff orts elsewhere. This is why both campaigns in 2012
spent so much time and campaign funds on states such as Virginia, Ohio, and Flor-
ida (swing states with many electoral votes)—and why they largely ignored the Dis-
trict of Columbia and other states in the small-state, one-party-dominant category.
While most Americans believe that the winner of the presidential election is
decided on Election Day, t h is outcome is a ct ua l ly just t he fi rst step in a process that
determines the winner. After citizens’ votes are counted in each state, the slates
of electors meet in December in the state capitals. At their meetings the electorselectoral college The body that
votes to select America’s president
and vice president based on the
popular vote in each state. Each
candidate nominates a slate of
electors who are selected to attend
the meeting of the college if their
candidate wins the most votes in a
state or district.
ONE OF THE PRIMARY PURPOSES
of presidential nominating
conventions is to showcase a
party’s nominee before a national
audience. Here, Barack Obama
and Joe Biden appear after being
offi cially nominated at the 2012
Democratic National Convention.