After explaining how elite agreements within the People’s Democratic Party contributed to the transition’s success, I ask: how did the PDP lose in 2015? I answer this question in three separate steps, culminating in a comprehensive account of Nigeria’s first electoral turnover. Chapter 3 provides the first step in my answer. I provide context for the election by describing President Goodluck Jonathan’s unusual route to power though the death of the president, and I summarize existing literature on the PDP’s loss. I then empirically demonstrate how the opposition APC opted for a campaign strategy centered more on the economy than on terrorism. I show this through a content analysis using NVivo software of 929 coded comments from party officials, drawn from a search of 2,390 news articles. I code party leaders’ comments and quotations into five thematic categories. APC politicians overwhelmingly focused on economic issues, with “electoral integrity” – exceeding even the references to terrorism and insecurity. Though social issues were less prominent in the campaign, I find that the APC discussed social issues twice as often as the PDP. The findings suggest that issues increasingly matter in presidential campaigns, and the opposition successfully highlighted its commitment to clean elections.