Document A
For the past several decades, the United States has been in a period of party realignment and
dealignment. Party realignment occurs when the minority party becomes stronger than the
majority party, usually as the result of a minority party candidate winning a critical election. Party
dealignment occurs when no single political party is dominant. This situation might exist, for
example, when neither Democrats nor Republicans hold a majority of the seats in Congress or the
Supreme Court.
Political parties in the United States have existed in “eras,” or historical periods of dominance and
strong performance. During these eras, the party in control tended to dominate not only the policy
agenda but also the policy-making institutions. This dominance often had a huge political and
historical impact.
The first era was the Federalist Era, which began with the formation of the Federalist Party. Its
presidential candidate, John Adams, won the 1796 election. The Federalist Party was weakened by
disorganization and began to crumble when Adams was not re-elected in 1800. DemocraticRepublican Party candidate Thomas Jefferson was the victor in that election, marking the rise of
his party. By the 1820 election, the Federalist Party was gone, and its era was over.
The period from 1828 to 1856 is called the Jacksonian Era. During this time, DemocraticRepublican Andrew Jackson used a combination of face-to-face campaigning and patronage to
build a strong coalition of supporters. His efforts won him the presidency in 1828, and his party—
what is today’s Democratic Party—experienced significant growth.
The Jacksonian Era marked an important change in the process used to nominate presidential
candidates—caucuses disappeared and party conventions emerged. Under the caucus system,
members of Congress nominated the presidential candidates. This system made sense while the
United States was relatively small, but as the population grew and more people were granted
voting rights, the caucuses did not represent the people adequately. Party conventions were
organized to give voters more control over the nominating process, and for several decades these
conventions were powerful forces in the political arena.
The critical election of 1860 began a new era in American political history—the Republican Era.
Abraham Lincoln won the election and led the United States through the Civil War. Following the
war, the Republican Party had the support of businesses, industrialists, farmers, and former
slaves. Such large groups of supporters enabled the Republican Party to dominate the Presidency
and Congress for close to 60 years. Democrat Grover Cleveland was twice elected to the
Presidency during the Republican Era—once in 1884 and again in 1892. Despite his election, the
Republicans maintained control of political workings.
The Republican stronghold on politics ended with the critical election of 1932, when Democrat
Franklin Roosevelt was elected President. Roosevelt’s predecessor, Republican Herbert Hoover,
had become widely unpopular for his policies during the Great Depression. As the presidential
hopeful, Roosevelt promised Americans a New Deal to pull the country out of the Depression.
Roosevelt’s election marked the beginning of the New Deal Era. He was such a popular president
that he was re-elected in 1936, 1940, and 1944. Democratic dominance of the presidency was
interrupted in 1952 and 1956 with the election of Republican Dwight Eisenhower but was reestablished in 1960 with the election of John F. Kennedy. Although another Democrat, Lyndon
Johnson, was elected in 1964, his unpopular handling of the Vietnam War contributed to the end
of the New Deal Era of Democratic Party control.
Republican Richard Nixon was elected president in 1968, but neither the Republican nor
Democratic Party has regained the same monopoly on politics as they had during previous eras.
The United States is now in an era of Divided Government. Part of the reason why is because party
loyalty is far less intense today than it was 50 years ago. Waning loyalty neutralizes the power of
political parties and gives way to the rise of third parties. For example, several individuals,
including George Wallace, Ross Perot, and Ralph Nader, have formed their own political parties in
recent years.
While these and other third-party candidates have yet to win a presidential election, their chances
could be improving as more and more voters claim to be Independents rather than Democrats or
Republicans. The increase in Independent voters marks a shift toward party dealignment. This
shift can be an indication of either a highly informed electorate that is issue-oriented or a
hyperpluralist political environment unwilling to form coalitions.
Document B
The New Deal Coalition was the alignment of interest groups and voting blocs that supported the
New Deal and voted for Democratic presidential candidates from 1932 until approximately 1968,
which made the Democratic Party the majority party during that period, losing only to Dwight D.
Eisenhower in 1952 and 1956. Franklin D. Roosevelt created a coalition that included the
Democratic party, big city machines, labor unions, minorities (racial, ethnic and religious), liberal
farm groups, intellectuals, and white Southerners. The coalition fell apart in 1968, but it remains
the model that party activists seek to replicate.
Realignment
The 1932 election brought about major shifts in voting behavior, and became a permanent
realignment, though some scholars point to the off-year 1934 election as even more decisive in
stabilizing the coalition. Roosevelt set up his New Deal and forged a coalition of Big City machines,
labor unions, liberals, ethnic and racial minorities (especially Catholics, Jews and African
Americans) and Southern whites. These disparate voting blocs together formed a large majority of
voters and handed the Democratic Party seven victories out of nine presidential elections (1932–
48, 1960, 1964), as well as control of both houses of Congress during all but 4 years between the
years 1932-1980 (Republicans won majorities in 1946 and 1952). Starting in the 1930s, the term
“liberal” was used in U.S. politics to indicate supporters of the coalition, while "conservative"
denoted its opponents. The coalition was never formally organized, and the constituent members
often disagreed.
Political scientists have called the resulting new coalition the "Fifth Party System" in contrast to
the Fourth Party System of the 1896-1932 era that it replaced.
Cities
Roosevelt had a magnetic appeal to city dwellers, especially the poorer minorities who got
recognition, unions, and relief jobs. Taxpayers, small business and the middle class voted for
Roosevelt in 1936, but turned sharply against him after the recession of 1937-38 seemed to belie
his promises of recovery.
Document C
The 1968 election was one of several that are generally seen as a major realignment in American
politics. It was not immediately apparent because Wallace carried the Deep South. But from 1968
on the Democrats could no longer count on the South as part of its political strategy. And President
Nixon in 1972 would adopt a Southern strategy. Since that election, the South would be an
important part of a new Republican coalition. Other major changes occurred. The 1968 election
also affected other Democratic strongholds. It was the s the last time until 1988 that Washington
voted Democratic. It was also the last time until 1992 that Connecticut, Maine and Michigan voted
Democratic in a presidential election election. The last major realignment was the Roosevelt 1932
election victory when forged an coalition of labor, ethnics, farmers, and the South which was
virtually impossible to defeat. Only war-hero Dwight Eisenhower was able to overcome the
coalition that Roosevelt had forged. The 1969 election not only tore the South out of the
Democratic coalition, but also diluted the union blue-collar Democratic vote. After 1968 it was the
Republicans who dominated the presidential elections. Certainly Civil Rights was part of the
changing political landscape, especially in the South. Vice-President Humphrey won less than 10
percent of the white Southern vote, and about two-thirds of his vote in the region was from newlyenfranchized blacks. [Gould, p 165 and White, p 401] But Civil Rights and the South is only part of
the story. The Democratic Party had begun to change. In addition to Civil Rights and opposition to
the Vietnam War, more stridently left-wing voices in the Democratic Party emerged. For them
even left-wing stalwart Hubert Humphrey was not liberal enough. This was not unrelated to Civil
Rights and the Vietnam War. Blacks and left-wing Americans were among the strongest
proponents of both Civil Rights and opposition to the war. They were also the most likely to
question America's opposition to Soviet imperialism and commitment to free market capitalism.
This explains the much of the political shifts outside the South. This process was furthered
reforms in how the Democratic Party selected its presidential nominees. The McGovern–Fraser
Commission adopted a set of rules for the states to follow in selecting Democratic Party
convention delegates. The overall impact was to reduced the influence of party leaders like Mayor
Daley in Chicago on the nominating process. The reforms also were designed to increase
representation for minorities, women, and youth. The reforms also led to more states adopting
primaries to select convention delegates.
Document D
Document E
The 1930s New Deal realignment reshaped the party system. The Great Depression acted as the
catalyst for a transformation of the party system that moved the Democrats from minority to
majority status at the national level. The New Deal Democratic coalition that put Franklin D.
Roosevelt in the White House and the Democratic Party in control of Congress combined support
from the working class and various ethnic and minority groups with already existing strength in
the South. The basis of Democratic appeal to blue-collar workers, low-income individuals, and
recent immigrant groups (largely Catholics and Jews from southern and eastern Europe) was the
party's liberalism in economic matters. Roosevelt and the Democrats favored federal government
activity to combat the Depression and proposed programs to benefit disadvantaged groups. The
Republicans, who appealed more to the middle-class, business groups, and northern white
Protestants, were critical of this expansion of government interference in the economy and
creation of a variety of social welfare programs. By the late 1930s, the lines between the two
parties were clearly drawn, both in ideological and socioeconomic terms (Ladd and Hadley 1978,
31-87)
Although the New Deal coalition began to break up in the 1960s, the impact of the New Deal
realignment has remained to the present, albeit in a diluted and revised form. Many of the party
images of decades past persist to the present. Democrats remain thought of as the party that
favors bigger government, more spending on domestic programs, and helping those at the bottom
of the economic pyramid. Republicans continue to be perceived as favoring limited government,
less spending on domestic programs, and fewer restrictions on business enterprises. Democrats
are seen as the party of the working class and lower-income groups. Republicans are viewed as
the party of business and upper-income groups. These are not baseless images. They reflect
continuing fundamental differences between the parties.