Veterans

SOME OF THE more recent research on electoral politics and voting behavior supports the conventional view that while voter turnout rates among Americans maybe modest, in the aggregate, military veterans tend to vote at higher rates than nonveterans. For instance, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, during the 2004 presidential election, the percentage of veterans who voted was roughly 73 percent, nearly 10 percentage points higher than nonveterans. Furthermore, using longitudinal statistical analyses run on data complied by the same agency, researchers find the difference in voting behavior between veterans and nonveterans is evident as early as the 1970s. Because veterans have some of the highest turnout rates in the electorate, and because candidates campaigning for election (or re-election) seek to maximize their votes in order to win, candidates and their respective political parties often search for ways to attract veteran support. One way in which candidates accomplish this task, is by supporting and campaigning on issues that are important to veterans.

Compensation for their military service in the form of pensions is one of the more important issues facing veterans. One of the earliest elections in which this issue was raised was the 1888 presidential election. President Grover Cleveland (D) was seeking a second term and his opponent was Benjamin Harrison (R). The high tariffs during the 1880s generated a huge revenue surplus, and the political elites were debating whether to lower taxes or allocate the revenue toward efforts to liberalize the extant pension system. Cleveland and his party strongly advocated reducing the tariffs and opposed allocating the surplus revenue toward expanding the pension system. Doing so, on their view, would contribute to the already fraudulent and corrupt system. The Republicans disagreed. Harrison, a Civil War veteran, along with his fellow Republicans, fought intensely for the expansion of the pension system at the taxpayers' expense. Campaigning on liberalizing the pension system was seen by some as a gainful approach to attract members of the voting electorate, of which nearly 10 percent were Civil War veterans.

More importantly, adopting this position enabled his campaign to win the endorsement the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the best organized and influential veterans' organization of that time, whose membership totaled nearly 380,000. This strategy paid off for Harrison and his party at the polls, as he defeated the incumbent, winning 233 electoral votes to Cleveland's 168 electoral votes. The Republican Party also gained seats in both the House and Senate. Many attribute the Republican's victory in the 1888 election to the veterans' vote.

Due largely to the U.S. involvement in the World Wars, efforts to provide compensation for veterans remained on the national agenda, culminating in the Serviceman's Readjustment Act of 1944 (also known as the G.I. Bill). While issues important to veterans, such as health care and workers' rights, were raised in campaigns, it was not until the 1960s that veterans' issues re-asserted themselves in campaigns at the national level. This has much to do with the Vietnam War, which was the dominant issue in the 1968 presidential election between Richard Nixon (R) and Herbert Humphrey (D).

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