Is America Heading Toward Partisan Realignment

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Is America Heading Toward Partisan Realignment?

• Thomas F. Schaller
• Guest Lectures, Dr. Nick Miller
• POLI 100, Spring 2008

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Partisan Realignments

• Sudden, significant and durable shift in
  partisanship
• Measurable in partisan changes among both masses
  (i.e., voting, registration, identification) and
  elites (i.e., offices held, majority control,
  parties apparatus and resources)
• Realigning elections hallmark the start of a
  party era/system in which one party dominates for
  an extended period deviating elections punctuate
  that dominance, as the minority party wins
  presidency, congressional majorities and/or
  subnational offices
• Partisan cycling effects
• Newly-emergent issues, coupled with the
  inevitable generational replacement of old voters
  with new, reduces the dominant partys control,
  leaving power at an imbalance
• A period of partisan instability ensues, marked
  by creative destruction and the rise of splinter
  or third parties, new coalitions, and party
  converts

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Brief History

• 1860
• Lincoln wins with a 40 percent plurality of the
  vote, but wins re-election decidedly. Slavery
  provides issue catalyst that coalesces vestiges
  of Whigs and nascent parties into Republican
  Party, which dominates electoral politics for
  next three decades interrupted only by the two,
  non-consecutive deviating terms won by Grover
  Cleveland, each with only a plurality of the
  vote.
• 1896
• On the heels of a catastrophic economic downturn,
  William McKinley wins two terms, commencing
  another, albeit distinct period of GOP dominance
  for the ensuing three decades, interrupted only
  by the two deviating terms of Woodrow Wilson,
  each won with only a plurality of the vote.
• 1932
• Fueled by the economic hardships of the Great
  Depression, Franklin Roosevelt wins the first of
  four solid victories (five straight for the
  Democrats, counting Harry Trumans 1948 win),
  with only moderate war-hero Republican Dwight
  Eisenhowers two terms interceding between FDR
  and LBJ.
• 1968
• The partisan wheels come off. Richard Nixon wins
  with a plurality of the vote, becoming the first
  president in American history in his initial
  election whose party fails to carry at least one
  chamber of Congress. Though winning in a
  landslide, he is forced to resign to avoid
  impeachment.
• What follows is a period of dealignment and
  unprecedented divided (and often divisive)
  government
• All but Carters four years, Clintons first two,
  and Bush43s recent two are split governments.
• Partisan registration and attachments decline,
  and an entire post-Vietnam, post-Watergate
  generation fails to be socialized politically as
  earlier generations had.
• Independents, soft partisans and split-ticketing
  voting rise.
• Two impeachment attempts, various congressional
  scandals, rejected Court nominations, etc.
• AND YET, amid the chaos there is a gradual,
  quantifiable rise in the Republican Partys
  fortunes, hallmarked by Ronald Reagans solid
  election and re-election, the Newt Gingrich-led
  House revolution and subsequent maintenance of
  congressional majorities.

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Purple Parity America?

• Presidency George Bush elected by 271-267
  electoral vote margin and negative popular vote
  margin of 0.5 nationally re-elected by smallest
  percentage of re-elected presidents in a century.
• Congress GOP had 30-seat House majority and
  10-seat Senate edge before 2006 Dems now have
  30-seat House majority, 2-seat Senate majority.
• Governors Relatively dividedGOP had 28-22
  before, Dems now have 28 governors.
• State legislative majorities Before 2006 GOP
  20, Dem 19, split 10 after Dem 23, GOP 15,
  split 11.
• State legislators. Prior to 2006 were GOP 49.5
  Dem 49.5 GOP edge was just 64 seats nationally,
  now a Democratic edge of about 258 seats.

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Electoral College Trends

• You just lived through the two most stable
  presidential elections in American history Just
  three states (NH, IA, NM) flipped between 2000
  and 2004the fewest since Washington ran the
  table back-to-back in 1788 1792.
• The map is highly bifurcated In 1960, an
  election won by .2 in popular vote, there were
  14 comfortable statewide wins (10), 6 of
  which were blowouts (20) by 2000, an
  election won by -.5, there were 28 comfortable
  wins, of which 14 were blowouts.
• The Non-Southern calculus is here Democrats won
  the popular vote three of past four elections,
  and got 270 non-southern electoral votes in 1992
  and 1996, and came within one state of doing so
  in 2000 and 2004.

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The End of the Vital Center

• Abramowitz (2007), CCES data

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Simon Schuster October 2006
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The Non-Southern Strategy

• Makes sense no matter how you slice it
• Ideology Why would the more liberal and
  progressive of the two parties start to rebuild
  itself in the most conservative region of the
  country?
• Demography Why would a female-led, multi-racial,
  union-oriented, urban/inner-suburban, more
  secular party rebuild itself in the least
  gender-gapped, most racially-polarized, least
  unionized, most rural and evangelized region?
• History The Northeast and West outvoted the
  South from 1860-1932 the Northeast flipped and,
  along with the South, outvoted the West from
  1932-1968 the South flipped and, along with the
  West, outvoted the Northeast from 1968 to today.
  The West is due to flip next, recreating the same
  map the GOP used to dominate politics from
  1860-1932.
• Numerics The South has basically cast the same
  share of electors for 13 decadesbetween 27
  percent and 31 percent.

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Where the Seats Were Won

• Governors 5 of 6 new Democratic governors (84)
  won outside the South AR, CO, MD, MA, NY, OH.
• Senate 5 of the 6 new Democratic senators (84)
  won outside the South MO, MT, OH, PA, RI VA.
• House 24 of 30 new Democratic House members
  (83) from non-southern districts, including 21
  from the Northeast and Midwest alone.
• State legislatures All but two dozen of the 300
  net new Democratic state legislators (92) from
  outside the South, including all 10 chambers
  majoritiesand 17 of 18 chambers won during 2004
  2006 cycles.
• President Kerry won 14 states by 5?183
  electors Bush won 25 by 5?213. They split
  other 12, only one of which is in South Florida.
  The remaining 11 are CO, IA, MI, MN, NV, NH, NM,
  OH, OR, PA WI.

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Are we poised for a realignment?

• Yes
• Cyclical effect times out nearly to perfection
• 1860 36 1896 36 1932 36 1968 36
  2004!
• Realigning issue of 9/11 (favors Republicans?)
• Long-held GOP issue advantage on defense/foreign
  policy
• Bush the incumbent ran hard on post 9/11
  realigning issue terrorism
• Secular demographic trends (favor Democrats?)
• Ethnic minority share of population increasing
  (Hispanics surpass Blacks)
• Progressive ideopolis growth (Judis/Teixeira)
• Increased social/religious tolerance
• No
• Postmodern citizen preference for divided
  government (Fiorina)
• Too many registered independents, self-identified
  non-partisans
• Partisan polarization, inter-party dislike
  relatively stable
• Electoral system less responsive to political
  shocks
• Redistricting immunizes incumbents of both
  parties produces ideologues