Home > News > The Location of the Party Conventions Doesn’t Matter
125 views 8 sec 0 Comment

The Location of the Party Conventions Doesn’t Matter

- February 1, 2011

With Obama choosing Charlotte, the speculation begins! Will this help him win North Carolina? Shouldn’t he have picked a different state? What about Virginia? Or Indiana? Or Ohio? Ad nauseum.

It doesn’t matter. From a “study”:http://publius.oxfordjournals.org/content/34/3/115.abstract (gated) of the 1932-2000 presidential elections by “Richard Powell”:http://umaine.edu/polisci/faculty-and-staff/richard-j-powell/:

bq. Generally, parties do not derive significant electoral benefits in states selected to host the national convention or those in which they control the governorship.

That bit about controlling the governor seems important too, especially since I recently sat at an off-the-record dinner at GW and listened to a very prominent Democratic pollster suggest otherwise.

UPDATE: See also the study “cited by”:http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=02&year=2011&base_name=presidential_conventions_dont Jamelle Bouie.