The Two Party System
The two-party system has been a
remarkably stable feature of the American
political landscape. Despite civil upheavals,
wars, and the collapse of several parties,
two parties have dominated nearly every
national political contest since the early 19th
century. Since 1860, these parties have
been the Democratic and Republican
parties. Some observers have praised the
dominance of two parties as a foundation for
the United States' relative political stability
and tendency toward consensus, while
others have deplored it as a tool of
entrenched vested interests and a roadblock
to meaningful reform.
Few would dispute the enduring strength
and resilience of the two-party system. Only
once since 1860 has a third-party
presidential candidate won more than 20%
of the popular vote, and only a handful of
independents or third-party adherents have
served in Congress. On the national level,
competition between the two parties has
been close. Only four post-Civil War
presidents have won election with more than
60% of the vote, and seldom has one party
held a veto-proof majority in Congress.
Although Republicans generally take
conservative stands and Democrats hold
liberal values, political ideology is but one of
many factors that affect party allegiance.
Geography, ethnic loyalties, local political
peculiarities, history, and stands on specific
issues often trump broader political beliefs.
Although each party has a core
constituency, both must play to the vast
number of moderates to win national
elections. When the Republicans strayed too
far to the political right under Barry
Goldwater in 1964, they were crushed;
likewise, in 1972, George McGovern led
Democrats to the political left and to one of
its worst defeats.
Despite the resilient two-party system on the
national level, individual states and regions
have often had one-party systems. For
much of the late 19th century and the first
half of the 20th, the South was so solidly
Democratic that Republicans often did not
bother competing in the region. Any
electoral choice came at party caucuses,
conventions, or primaries and general
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multiparty elections were mere formalities.
Much of the Midwest was similarly
dominated by Republicans during this
period. Other states have two parties that
are not the same as the national parties.
Minnesota, for instance, has featured a
Republican Party and a Democratic FarmerLabor Party since the 1930s and in 1998,
elected a governor, Jesse Ventura, from yet
another party, the Reform Party. Some cities
have elected mayors or other officials from
small parties, including several Socialists.
The two-party system has no basis in the
U.S. Constitution. The framers of the
Constitution by and large deplored parties
as factions, believing that good government
depended on virtuous public servants
concerned with the public good. However,
parties began to form almost as soon as the
ink was dry on the founding documents. It
was not until the 1830s, however, that
parties came to be seen not only as a
permanent feature of politics, but as an
indispensable part of a system in which
party competition could further good
government, whether the politicians were
virtuous or not.
Historians often speak of five successive
two-party systems in American history, each
characterized by a general alignment of the
parties. The first, from 1789 to around 1824,
began with Federalists dominating the
national government. Their support of
economic policies favoring manufacturing
over farming prompted the rise of a
Democratic-Republican Party opposition
around Thomas Jefferson, who became
president in 1800. The Federalists, following
the Republican example, began organizing
at the local level, but after the War of 1812,
the party slowly dissolved.
The second party system arose after
Andrew Jackson's victory in 1828. By then,
the Democratic-Republicans had become
known as Democrats, while opposition to
Jackson's policies prompted the creation of
the Whig Party. Although they won the
presidency only twice, the Whigs
established a nationwide organization that
hotly contested every election with the
Democrats. Whigs generally favored internal
improvements and high tariffs while the
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The Two Party System
Democratic Party catered to a coalition of
Western farmers, immigrants, and Catholics,
but both parties were diverse coalitions of
many groups and persuasions. Neither party
took a strong stand on the greatest issue of
the day—slavery—and both were split into
Northern and Southern factions as the Civil
War approached.
The third party system saw the rapid rise of
the Republican Party, founded in 1854,
which was composed mostly of northern
Whigs and followers of the Free Soil Party,
an antislavery party that arose in 1848.
When the Democrats split into several
factions in 1860, Republican Abraham
Lincoln led the fledgling party to victory. At
first merely opposing the extension of
slavery, then supporting the Civil War and
the emancipation of slaves, the Republicans
also inherited from the Whigs a tilt toward
commercial interests and in favor of
government funding of internal
improvements. The Democratic Party
resurrected itself following the war, based on
the loyalty of white Southerners, and soon
became competitive at the national level.
However, Republicans, with a solid base in
the North and West, held the presidency for
all but eight years of the period from 1860 to
1912.
Historians date the fourth party system from
around 1896, pointing to the realignment of
the parties brought about by the merger of
the third-party Populists with the Democrats.
This coalition with the agrarian radicals
hobbled the Democrats for years because it
left much of the political middle to the
Republican Party. Only a split over
progressive policies in 1912 gave the
Democrats a president, Woodrow Wilson,
although he was succeeded in office by
three more Republicans.
The fifth party system dates quite clearly
from the onset of the Great Depression and
the coalition created by Democratic
President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.
Southern whites, Catholics, union workers,
Jews, blacks, and immigrants formed the
core of the new Democratic Party, but they
were joined by many others who admired
the party's activist approach to restoring
prosperity and creating social programs.
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This broad coalition enabled the Democrats
to dominate the presidency for two decades
and hold the majority in most Congresses
until 1994.
The fifth party system has undergone many
changes, with Southerners, union workers,
and Catholics no longer tied to the
Democrats. Although many Republicans felt
their victory in the 1994 congressional
elections marked the start of a new political
alignment, some political scientists suggest
that rather than realignment, the current
party system is characterized by
dealignment. Voters are increasingly
reluctant to identify themselves with either
party, and a party's triumph in any one
election means little for the next. The
independent Ross Perot's strong showings
in 1992 and 1996 were due more to disgust
with the two major parties than the
attractiveness of a Perot presidency.
Many reasons have been proposed for the
persistence of the two-party system in the
United States. The existence of two parties
in Britain prior to the American Revolution
suggests it is in part a cultural inheritance.
Others have cited the tendency of
Americans toward consensus and
moderation as a cause rather than an effect
of the system. Most Americans agree on
fundamental social and economic issues,
and there are few issues that would prompt
them to form a third party. Although the
parties have core constituencies and take
some specific stands on issues, they both
remain politically flexible and prepared to
fight for the broad political middle ground.
When an issue appears that could create a
third-party threat, one of the parties, or
sometimes both, will adopt or appear to
adopt the issue as its own. This stance
usually agrees with those concerned with
the issue, since they have a better shot at
promoting change as part of a major party.
Only a few times have specific issues
disrupted the two-party system. Antislavery
sentiments led to the formation of the Liberty
Party and the Free Soil Party in the 1840s
and 1850s. Agrarian discontent fueled the
Populist (People's) Party in 1892. Federal
civil rights policies prompted prosegregation
third-party candidates in 1948 (Strom
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The Two Party System
Thurmond) and 1968 (George Wallace). The
most nearly successful third-party bid for the
presidency was made in 1912 by former
president Theodore Roosevelt, who split the
Republican Party over progressive policies.
While some smaller ideologically based
parties, such as the various labor,
progressive, Socialist, and Communist
parties, have persisted for decades, they
have seldom been able to expand from their
small electoral bases.
Another explanation is institutional. Although
there are no constitutional provisions for
parties, and federal and state laws try to
avoid giving any party an advantage, some
observers argue that the two parties are
kept in power by the way parties have
organized government. When a half dozen
Populists were elected to Congress in 1892,
they found themselves shut out of
committee assignments, which were set up
by agreement between the major parties,
and that the speaker avoided recognizing
them to speak on the House floor. Without
access to power, they were ineffective
legislators and were not reelected.
The most persuasive reason for the twoparty system is structural: the system is
stacked against third parties. The
Constitution provides for single-member
congressional districts, elected by plurality,
rather than proportional representation
based on an at-large popular vote. In a
proportional parliamentary system, a party
that garners only 20% or even 10% of the
popular vote will win that percentage of the
legislative seats and will be in a good
position, as a potential coalition member, to
bargain for its interests. A vote for such a
party is not "wasted" unless the party falls
below a certain minimum percentage to earn
representation.
In a winner-take-all, single member system;
such a party might win no seats at all,
unless it has a geographic stronghold. A
party without a realistic chance of winning
any given district will seldom attract votes.
The presidential election is even more
strongly skewed in favor of the two parties,
since a candidate must win an entire state in
order to win electoral votes. While some
political scientists have cited other factors as
important, most would agree with Maurice
Duverger, who concluded that the simplemajority, single-ballot, winner-take-all
system almost invariably leads to a twoparty system—a theory known as
Duverger's Law.
The reason for the two-party system's
persistence is important. If it is a matter of
traditional attitudes or institutional provisions
(such as the committee system), then third
parties can harbor the hope of overcoming
these obstacles and winning elections on
the national level, not merely attracting a
small percentage of protest votes. This
reasoning is important to those who would
vote for or contribute to such insurgent
groups as the Reform Party, which is trying
to establish its legitimacy. If Duverger is
correct, however, a two-party system is as
much a feature of our constitutional system
as Congress itself, and no amount of
tinkering with institutional fairness will
undermine the dominance of the two parties.
Factions can still hope to effect national
policy but primarily by having their ideas and
voters co-opted by the major parties.
Political scientists continue to argue over
whether the two-party system efficiently
manages conflict within the American
electorate or merely stifles non-centrist
opinions. Compared to other democratic
nations, American politics tend strongly
toward consensus. Most important political
changes occur slowly, and the far
ideological right or left have seldom
achieved any representation in Congress. It
is difficult to say whether this is because
most Americans are fundamentally centrist
in their politics or because the two dominant
parties shut out groups that are not in the
political mainstream. Despite the two parties'
stranglehold on national power, however,
their dominance depends on rapid response
to changing opinions. When they have failed
to respond, major third-party challenges
have arisen—for instance, the Free Soil
Party, the Populist Party, and the
Progressive Party. Although these parties
did not gain power or last long, they served
to realign or revitalize the party system and
greatly influenced the politics of their eras.
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