Will Cleveland help the RNC?
Does location matter when choosing a city to host national conventions? If you ask a political campaign, the answer is a resounding “yes.” But Christopher B. Mann, associate professor of political science, says “maybe not.”
He has two reasons. The first: States are the wrong place to look for local effect on elections. The second: The impact of conventions aren’t always positive. Analyzing county-level election returns for every presidential election from 1972 to 2012, Mann, along with colleague Joseph E. Uscinski from the University of Miami, found that having a convention in a particular media market can lead to a greater vote share for that party’s candidate in the counties in that market.
