Campaign Stops

AP US Government and Politics and Chickens

In the 2016 presidential elections, after the party nominating conventions, what four states had over half of all campaign events?

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Post-Convention Campaign Stops per State

NATIONAL POPULAR VOTE PLAN

AP US Government and Politics

1. How accurate was your prediction?

2. What was most surprising about this map?

3. What is the take home story of this map?

4. Explain why the map looks this way.

5. What is one consequence of this concentration of campaign activity?

6. What is the political science term we use to describe these four states?

7. Central to the concept of democracy is the the idea that all people are politically equal. The Declaration of Independence contains these lines regarding the value of equality. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,” Does this map resemble political equality?

8. Why did California, the nation's most populous state, receive only one campaign stop?

9. 28 states received no visits from presidential campaigns. Why is that?

10. Explain whether the information from this map is good news.

11. Imagine the 28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished the Electoral College (don’t hold your breath). How would that Constitutional change impact the data from the map?

12. Explain how this concentrated campaign activity in those four states impacted voter turnout in those states.

13. Explain how this concentrated campaign activity in those four states impacted voter turnout In the other states.

14. At the time of the Constitutional Convention The Anti-Federalists were afraid of too much power being concentrated in a central national government. They preferred that power be centered at the state level. If an anti-federalist saw this map, after they stopped freaking out about how Big the U.S. had gotten, what claim would they make about this map and the power of states?

15. What change in the US electoral system could make campaign events be spread more evenly throughout the US?

16. What is a pirate’s Favorite place to eat lunch?*

Learning Extension

Analyze the map with the folks from NPVP and watch this video that explains how the NPVP works.

Action Extension

If states with a majority of electoral votes enacted the National Popular Vote Plan, US presidential campaigns would be very different and campaign stops would be more evenly distributed. Use this handy little link to contact your state representative (they decide where your state's electoral votes go) and let them know what you think about the National Popular Vote Plan.