The purpose of this article is to add critical expansion and empirical correction to the thinking about critical elections in American history in general and the New Deal realignment in particular. There will be first a discussion of critical realignment theory, in which some of its ambiguities with regard to the relationship of voting turnout to realignment will be explored. Next, some propositions derived from this literature will be tested in an effort to correct the theory and eliminate the ambiguities. Aggregate data from presidential and congressional elections, 1912-1940, in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, and the city of Pittsburgh, will be employed in this effort.In general, it will be argued that, when fluctuations in turnout are taken into account, the electoral changes preceding 1940 are at least as correctly described by the term “mobilization” as by the term “realignment.” Finally, some observations will be offered on the future of critical election theory.
Prior Beliefs and Voter Turnout in the 1986 and 1988 Congressional Elections