The ground upon which campaigns and elections are contested has been shifting rapidly in the last decade. Radical and ongoing changes to the way elections are administered and campaigns are financed; new approaches to polling, campaign management and advertising, and voter mobilization; and recent developments in the organization of political parties and interest groups, the operation of the media, and the behavior of voters require close examination. New Directions in Campaigns and Elections guides students through the tangle of recent developments in real-world politics drawing on the insights of innovative scholarship on these topics.

More than any other aspects of American politics, campaigns and elections have been affected—in many cases transformed—by new communication technologies, a recurring theme throughout the volume. This tightly organized collection of original contributions raises important normative questions, grounds students’ thinking in cutting edge empirical research, and balances applied politics with scholarly insights. Like other volumes in the New Directions in American Politics series, the focused exploration of the latest developments across a comprehensive range of topics makes this an ideal companion for students eager to understand the rapidly changing political environment of the U.S. electoral process.