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Congress: The ContextBASELINE RESULTS |
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1. List the Democratic candidate's baseline vote as provided in the table in the Determining the Election Results section. |
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CAMPAIGN EFFECTS - GENERAL |
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***Commercials |
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2a. List the average rating for the Democratic candidate's commercials. |
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2b. List the average rating for the Republican candidate's commercials. |
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2c. Take the number written on line 2a and subtract the number written on line 2b. This may be a negative number if the Democrat's commercials are worse than the Republican's commercials. |
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2d. Take the number written on line 2c and multiply by four. |
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***Stump Speeches |
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3a. List the average rating for the Democratic candidate's stump speeches. |
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3b. List the average rating for the Republican candidate's stump speeches. |
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3c. Take the number written on line 3a and subtract the number written on line 3b. This may be a negative number if the Democrat's stump speeches are worse than the Republican's stump speeches. |
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3d. Take the number written on line 3c and multiply by three. |
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***Debates |
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4a. List the total score for the Democratic candidate in the debate. |
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4b. List the total score for the Republican candidate in the debate. |
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4c. Take the number written on line 4a and subtract the number written on line 4b. This may be a negative number if the Democrat's debate performance was judged worse than the Republican's debate performance. |
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4d. Take the number written on line 4c and multiply it by three. |
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4e. Take the number written on line 4d and divide it by five. |
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***Total campaign effects |
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5a. Add the numbers written on lines 2d, 3d, and 4e. |
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5b. Divide the number written on line 5a by 10. This is the total adjustment made in this section to the Democrat's baseline vote listed in line 1. |
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CAMPAIGN EFFECTS - CASE-SPECIFIC ITEMS |
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6a. List the total score for this section as provided by the case-specific items. |
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6b. Subtract 12 from the number listed in line 6a. This may yield a negative number. |
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6c. Divide the number written on line 6b by 2. This is the total adjustment made in this section to the Democrat's baseline vote listed in line 1. |
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RANDOM EFFECTS |
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7. Go to the table of random numbers, randomly select one of the numbers, and place it on this line. This is the random effect that will be used as an adjustment to the Democrat's baseline vote listed in line 1. |
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FINAL TOTALS |
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8. Take the following figures and add them: lines 1, 5b, 6c, and 7. These figures become the vote total earned by the Democratic candidate. If it is greater than 50, the Democrat wins. If it is less than 50, the Republican wins. If it is equal to exactly 50, the election is a virtual dead heat. Tell the students that a recount is taking place, go into the faculty lounge, flip a coin to determine the winner (it's as accurate a way as any to decide such a close election), and announce who won. |
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Scorecard for Determining Election Results
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The Dirksen Congressional Center Gateway
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- The Dirksen Center
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Helping People Better Understand the U.S. Congress, its people, its processes, and the public policies it produces.
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Robert Henry "Bob" Michel - An American Republican Party politician who was a member of the United States House of Representatives for 38 years
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Congressional Timeline
The Congressional Timeline developed and maintained by The Dirksen Congressional Center, arrays more than 550 of the nation's laws on a timeline beginning in 1933 and continuing to the present. A second timeline "band" depicts major political events of the period as a way to provide context for Congress's law-making...More
73rd Congress: March 9, 1933 - June 18, 1934
A meeting of the legislative branch of the U.S. federal government. The first session of Congress, known as the "Hundred Days," took place before the regular seating and was called by President Roosevelt specifically to pass two acts. March 9, 1933, The Emergency Banking Act...More
74th Congress: January 3, 1935 - June 20, 1936
The Soil and Conservation and Domestic Allotment Act allowed the government to pay farmers to reduce production so as to conserve soil, prevent erosion, and accomplish other minor goals. It was a piece of legislation passed in response to the Supreme Court's declaration....More
75th Congress: January 5, 1937 - June 16, 1938
In 1938 the Civil Aeronautics Act transferred federal responsibilities for non-military aviation from the Bureau of Air Commerce to a new, independent agency, the Civil Aeronautics Authority. The legislation also gave the authority the power to regulate airline fares and to determine...More
76th Congress: January 3, 1939 - January 3, 1941
On November 4, 1939, the Neutrality Act of 1939 was passed, allowing for arms trade with belligerent nations on a cash and carry basis, thus in effect ending the arms embargo. ...More
77th Congress: January 3, 1941, to December 16, 1942
The Lend-Lease Act was signed into law on March 11, 1941, a year and a half after the outbreak of the European war in September 1939, but six months before the U.S. entrance into the war in December 1941. It was called An Act Further to Promote the Defense of the United States...More
Dirksen Center Special Projects
Dirksen Center Special Projects is a series of multi-media projects rich in Web-based resources on a variety of topics from civil rights to editorial cartoons. We have posted them where it makes sense within our Web suite. But as the suite has grown, we suspect it has become more difficult to find these special projects.
To make them stand out, we have created the Dirksen Center Special Projects web page to host links to all our special projects listed below.