Learning Pathway: Elections 2024, 2022, & 2020

The Elections 2024, 2022, & 2020 Learning Pathway consists of sections on voting rights, voter suppression, and the history of elections in the U.S., resources and materials for the 2024 Presidential election, and historical information on the 2022 mid-terms and the 2020 Presidential election.

Building Democracy For All is designed so that teachers and students can follow different Learning Pathways as they explore materials in the book. Rather than proceeding sequentially through civics and government curriculum standards, Learning Pathways invite a thematic approach. In addition Elections 2024, 2022, & 2020, other learning pathways include: Student RightsInfluential Women, Black Lives MatterMedia Literacy, and Current Events.

voting box with ballots coming out
Image by Felipe Blasco from Pixabay

Part I: Election Topics in Building Democracy for All 

UNDERSTANDING UNITED STATES ELECTIONS

Presidential Elections 1952-2004
US presidential elections 1952-2004 by Roke~commonswiki is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

VOTING RIGHTS AND VOTER SUPPRESSION

ELECTION-RELATED ISSUES

Election Day 1972 Birmingham Alabama
Election Day 1972, Birmingham, Alabama | Public Domain

HISTORY OF U.S. ELECTIONS

Part II: Election Resources and Key Insights

Election 2024 Resources 

Trump's Electoral College Edge Seems to Be Fading. Nate Cohn. The New York Times, September 11, 2023.

Quoting from the article with a focus on the battleground states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Arizona, Georgia, and Nevada:

  • The polls so far this cycle suggest that the demographic foundations of Mr. Trump’s advantage in the Electoral College might be eroding.
  • Mr. Biden is relatively resilient among white voters, who are generally overrepresented in the battleground states.
  • Mr. Trump, meanwhile, shows surprising strength among nonwhite voters, who are generally underrepresented in the most critical battleground states.
  • As a consequence, Mr. Trump’s gains among nonwhite voters nationwide would tend to do more to improve his standing in the national vote than in the battleground states.

The End of a Presidential Launchpad. The New York Times (December 5, 2022)

  • Iowa will no longer be the first-in-the-nation Presidential primary for the Democratic Party in 2024.

The 2022 Mid-Term Election

The 2020 Presidential Election

The 2020 Presidential election was called the most consequential election in modern times. The coronavirus pandemic, partisan divides between people and political parties, Black Lives Matter protests, an economic recession that may lead to a second Great Depression, and looming environmental disasters contributed to uncertainty about the future of American democracy. We designed an Election 2020 choice board featuring a higher-order thinking activities and exploration of the learning pathway chapters (click here to make your own copy of the choice board). 

Screenshot of Election 2020 choice board
"Election 2020" Choice Board by Robert W. Maloy, Ed.D. & Torrey Trust, Ph.D.,
College of Education, University of Massachusetts Amherst. Licensed under CC BY NC ND 4.0

The Bitter End: The 2020 Presidential Election and the Challenge of American Democracy by political scientists Lynn Vavreck, Chris Tausanovitch, and John Sides (Princeton University Press, 2022) argues that the attitudes of voters have been become so "calcified" that people for their party or against the other party no matter what the issues or who is running. Here is an interview with the authors.

Explore poliitical parties in Topic 3.5.

Election 2020 Resources 

This content is provided to you freely by Equity Press.

Access it online or download it at https://equitypress.org/democracy/pathwayelection.