This book scrutinizes one of the oldest and most deeply held pieces of conventional wisdom about American elections: that election outcomes depend a great deal upon turnout rates and Democrats benefit from higher turnout. Shaw and Petrocik's careful, thorough analysis utterly refutes this claim. It is dead, and it is not coming back. Rather, they find that an old, almost forgotten explanation — surge and decline — more strongly connects turnout and
election outcomes.
Daron Shaw is a Professor of Government at the University of Texas at Austin and co-director of the Fox News Poll, co-director of the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll, director of the Texas Lyceum Poll, and associate Principle Investigator for the 2020 American National Election Study. He is author of The Race to 270 and co-author of Unconventional Wisdom (Oxford).
John Petrocik is Professor Emeritus Political Science at the University of Missouri and worked as a consultant and strategist for political campaigns. He co-authored Unconventional Wisdom (Oxford) and The Changing American Voter, winner of the American Political Science Association's 1976 Woodrow Wilson Award, and is the author of Party Coalitions.
